Good AM, folks!
Surprised by letter
The Sept. 25 letter "Ideological views" is educational — and scary. It's
paranoid beyond belief, and I'm surprised that the Journal would even print
it.
If that's how conservatives see liberals, it's no wonder they're so
frightened. But this letter is just a litany of false caricatures about liberals
that has no basis in reality. Who wants a "voting system … conveniently
vulnerable to fraud?" Liberals fought against that very thing after George W.
Bush was elected.
"Religious expression is forbidden in public life"? No, nobody wants that.
But there's a difference between individual religious expression and
government-sponsored religious expression, and anyone who can't acknowledge the
difference is either ignorant or dishonest. The letter writer would also feel
different if someone else's religious expression were forced on her — which is
kind of what this letter is objecting to.
"The ideals and principles expressed by the Founders and encompassed in the
founding documents are virtually irrelevant and must be overhauled for the 21st
century"? Considering how tea-party members and other conservatives are so eager
to change the parts of the Constitution that they don't like, I don't think the
writer even knows what that sentence means.
This letter has nothing to do with liberal progressive ideology; it's only a
conservative's fever dream. This is the most dishonest letter I've ever seen in
the Journal. I'll bet it will rally the troops, though.
PHIL RONALD TURNER
Winston-Salem
A great place to live
The recent polls naming Winston-Salem as a fun, affordable and generally
terrific place to live have received front-page coverage in the Journal,
culminating in the Sept. 25 feature, "'Cities have egos, too.'" Where was some
thinking about how the Aug. 17 front-page article "Hunger study calls area worst
in U.S." fits into that picture?
I find Winston-Salem to be a great place to live — I read the article after a
Saturday enjoying the Gateway YWCA, the ARTSfest in West End and dinner and a
movie downtown. Having bought a house in West End in 1985, when one couldn't get
Thai food or even a fresh bagel here, I find a day like that to be a payoff, my
just desserts for years of patient faith in this community.
However, I do not enjoy all these things because I deserve them. I have
lucked into my privileges: a family that saw to it that I had a fine education,
resulting in all the open doors that allow me now to enjoy these amenities. I am
fortunate that I have not only a job but a very rewarding and satisfying one, at
Forsyth Country Day School, when so many have no job at all.
So, let us consider the third of households in this area that are not finding
things so fun and affordable here when we are analyzing our city's national
reputation, when we are legislating social policies and when we consider how to
allot our own incomes.
STEPHANIE LOVETT
Winston-Salem
Mr. Turner: I agree; Ms. Phillip's Sept. 25th letter IS paranoid
ReplyDeleteHmmm, maybe somebody on the Journal Forum will write an LTE about Muslims in bikinis. Maybe that change of subject wil help.
ReplyDeleteI know a Muslim woman who wears bikinis and is a delight to behold when so attired.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I have seen women of many faiths wearing bikinis who should have been arrested and charged with attempting to gross out the puiblic.
Debs letter was no different from her daily comments on the Journal site, based on ignorance or simply outright lies. For example, just a few of her repetitious claims:
ReplyDelete• Marriage can become whatever one wants it to be. Ridiculous. The implication is that people will be able to marry goats and such. Marriage is a civil action and has nothing to do with Christians.
• Abortion-on-demand is protected ad nauseam and funded by taxpayer dollars. Abortion is legal. The Hyde Amendment, which has been attached to every spending bill since 1976, forbids use of Federal dollars for abortion except in case of rape, incest or dire threat to the pregnant woman’s health.
• The voting system remains conveniently vulnerable to fraud. Probably the stupidest of Deb’s repeated refrains. At every voting place there are representatives of both major parties on duty. The slightest hint of fraud is always brought up by one side or the other. There has been NO significant proven fraud at any voting place in many years. The only proven fraud cases have been attempts to keep large numbers of voters away from the polls, all perpetrated by members of the Republican Party. The voter ID business has nothing to do with voter fraud…it is a nationwide attempt by the GOP to disenfranchise Democratic voters.
• Religious expression is forbidden in public life. I said that the above was probably the stupidest because I forgot about this one. You have to ask yourself if Deb is really dumbe enough to believe this, or if she simply enjoys lying. Most likely it is like all the rest of her babble, a simple parroting of what her minister at Woodland or Calvary or whatever fundamentalist Baptist church says every Sunday. Oh, you poor Christian martyrs! Too bad you didn’t live when there actually were such things.
• The ideals and principles expressed by the Founders and encompassed in the founding documents are virtually irrelevant and must be overhauled for the 21st century. The Founding Fathers created a Federal court system to consider constitutional issues, because they knew that there would be plenty of them and that the Constitution would need constant reinterpretation as society grew and changed. The result of thousands of Federal court cases is what is known as Constitutional law and has the same force as the original words. People who cannot understand or pretend not to understand that are simply hopeless and clueless.
Forgot her stupid comment about unions.
ReplyDeleteUnion membership in the USA peaked at about 21 million in 1979. After over 30 years of war on unions at the national AND state levels, that membership is down to 16.7 million, barely 10% of the workforce.
As to the card check business, it is nothing new, having been a part of federal law for over 50 years. It is true that card check is subject to union bullying, but it is just as true that when secret ballot is used, the employers become the bullies...six of one, half a dozen of the other.
The NLRB must follow certain long-established rules to implement card check. So far there is no evidence, other than the propaganda drumbeat from the right, showing that they have failed to follow those rules.
And then there are taxes. Deb's statement:
ReplyDelete"Taxes continue to rise, choking the economy and the well-being of all Americans."
The truth:
Taxes are at a near all-time low, and that includes local property taxes, which are lower than they were 10 years ago.
I guess one cannot expect a parrot to actually think.
She's quite articulate and clever in her way, but places like Regent don't encourage critical thinking, nor the ability to see things from different perspectives.
ReplyDeleteYep, forgot the Regent...so she is parroting Pat Robertson as well...ha, ha!
ReplyDeleteI guess in the televangel world, the stupider you are the richer you get.
Debby want-a-cracker!
Here's a video for Bucktooth. This little girl would mop up the floor with him:
ReplyDeleteSoldier Girl
And for everyone else, a few minutes in Sangin with the 3/7 Marines. This ain't a training film. Don't you wish you could be there with them?
ReplyDeleteHelmet Cam On The Job
Good evening folks!
ReplyDeleteDeb does appear to be parroting some talk radio jive. Taxes are historically low.
On the union front . . . OT, you mention a war on unions, but unions have waged war on the right of self-determination from further back than then 1979 you cite. In LBJ administration, they sought to have the 14(b) provision of Taft-Hartley repealed. 14(b) allows states to pass the right-to-work laws so despised by the supposed protectors of workers' rights and by their politcal trained seals.
The Obama Administration's NLRB has been expanding how card check can be applied, making it easier for unions to bully people to sign. You mention that employers can bully via the secret ballot. I agree that they can indeed nag, but they don't slash tires, and bullied workers have the ability to effect reprisals in secret voting votes. They do not have that recourse with mouth-breathing goons shoving check cards in their faces.
We are nagged and strafed by pols during election season. President Obama was elected by secret ballot. Why do unions fear secret ballot? They can't sell themselves very well. Obama et al are cynical hypocrites for extending card check, and for trying to legislate it.
Oh, when unions are campaigning in representation elections, do they mention that they spend money for causes and candidates that members may not like? No. Or contribute to outfits like ACORN? No. Employers have a right, and duty to consumers and stockholders to ensure that employees understand what happens to their unions dues.
Yes, unions' private sector membership percentage has dropped to 10% (and may it continue) or thereabouts, but they bear responsibility for a significant part of that decline, along with the enabling pols they bought. Yes, management is to blame also, especially for not accepting temporary loss of market share by enduring long strikes to avoid ludicrous contracts.
You cited 10% private sector membership, ignored the much higher public sector membership. Public sector unions have damaged many states and localities. Venal private managers cannot be blamed for this, either, as public employee unions "negotiate" with the very pols they purchase. Taxpayers and public consumers of government services (students, for example) do not have a place at the bargaining table.
Stab, I see full days with those youngsters hasn't worn you out yet?
ReplyDeleteHi WW!
ReplyDeleteYes, they have :) But, it's an even match.
It's a great company, very pro-employee.
I hope all well with you and yours.
Thanks, we are well. Hang in there....pops:).
ReplyDeleteOh my, how could I have forgotten that the NC legislature passed the so-called Right to Work law out of concern for the rights of workers. Silly me.
ReplyDeleteI remember it well now, how it all happened. Thousands of tobacco and textile workers marched on Raleigh in early 1947, demanding the right to work, even though most of them were already working for sums as high as 50 cents per hour.
Of course, the legislature reacted swiftly to their demands. The law was actually written by a group of textile workers who had recently been beaten senseless by company goons...I mean gently counseled and coddled by special company employees. Some of them had served long prison terms for bruising the knuckles and breaking the billy clubs of the company goons...I mean, well, you know what I mean.
The new law was enacted on March 18, 1947 and the thousands of workers breathed a sigh of relief and returned to work. Workers at RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company, where a union had been pestering them for years, were finally able to tell the union to get lost. "We don't want 75 cents per hour!" they chanted.
Unfortunately for them, RJR, because of its great concern for the welfare of its workers, had already signed a union contract. But as soon as the company discovered the true wishes of its workers, it selflessly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to weasel out of...I mean abrogate...the contract. The workers were grateful forever after.
Thank goodness that we had legislators in those days who truly cared for the common man.