This is a dangerous time for democracy in the U.S.
Let’s get something straight. When right-wing Republicans accuse Democrats of bringing communism to this country, they are lying.
Democrats wholeheartedly are small “d” democrats. Every policy that Democrats endorse has as its intent the strengthening of economic and political democracy in this country. It is not “socialism.”
Progressive American Democrats are considered centrists among our Western European alies, with their very strong democracies and vibrant, inclusive societies.
Republicans, on the other hand, are increasingly going into full embrace of authoritarian, cult-of-personality (Trump) capitalism, which is called fascism.
The only threat to “freedom” in this country is coming from Republicans, who have fully embraced Orwellian doublespeak, where “freedom” means acceptance of tyranny of their political view, and any disagreement is treason.
We are in very dangerous times for our democracy — and the danger has moved from the far-right fringe to the center of the Republican Party.
All small “d” democratic Republicans — all fair and open-minded, democracy-loving people who have voted Republicans, please consider which party has now fully endorsed the attempt to overthrow a legal and fair election so their leader can illegally hold on to power and have brought into government allegiance to conspiracy fantasies over truth and fact.
BILL WALZ
Asheville
Media blamed for ignoring antibody tests, vaccines
The media has neglected the relationship between COVID antibody tests and vaccines, as I don’t intend to get a vaccine until I have a negative antibody test.
I have two reasons to delay my covid vaccine. One is to avoid being a guinea pig and the other is to provide one more vaccine to someone who may need it more. Both reasons serve together; and as long as I even might have covid antibodies, I don’t need to be pushing in line for a vaccine.
I also support dose separation. Billionaires shouldn’t get second doses until Bangladeshis have first doses.
ALAN DITMORE
Leicester
Will public schools teach tolerance... or intolerance?
Who should teach integration?
Race relations in America may seem intractable, but evidently they are vastly improved over the last few decades because no one is denied entry to a public space due to race, nor are they kept from education options, nor prevented marriage, nor denied housing, nor called a derogatory name without repercussions.
For the State Board of Education to install Critical Race Theory into the public schools precludes there has been insufficient progress since slavery and causes race to be touchstone of all aspects of our lives, creating a pulpit of humiliation over school-age students who may have never thought racially.
According to law, a crime could be charged as “hate” even if the perpetrator was not aware of a certain protected class.
How can children be charged with crimes?
But because of these inferences of the race theory, they will develop resentment towards such proponents and fearfulness for any speech.
Speech is the victim here, not a demographic class. A tolerant attitude cannot be demanded just as morality cannot be legislated. The crime here is believing the hearts of youth are corrupted and must be processed via these scripts of an Orwellian society.
WREN WEST
Asheville
U.N. Agenda 21/30: Socialism on your doorstep
Sociallism (as defined by me): A system designed to control the means of achieving equality.
We hear a lot today about the evil of so-called systemic racism and yet, right before our eyes, is a much greater threat that we should all be aware of.
It is an agenda that puts a clear damper on the creative ingenuity of the individual because it is based on the notion of achieving equality, which is actually antithetical to freedom.
Freedom means you are free to develop, express and exercise your own genius which, of course, is unequal to anyone else’s. This agenda is bent on guaranteeing a sense of artificially mandated equality throughout the world.
I am speaking specifically of U.N. Agenda 21/30. These two related agendas sound very noble when one reads their respective preambles, but when they are placed under the microscope of critical review, they are no more than plans for a highly centralized world government that is meant to control almost every aspect of our lives primarily in the name of “equality.”
The preamble, full of high-flying rhetoric, even states that the U.N. goals will “free the human race from the tyranny of poverty” and “heal” the planet. It is really a not-so-subtle plan to implement global socialism through maximum control of the way we live.
It is, in fact, a recipe for the kind of tyranny that will make us love our servitude because it makes us feel more noble. It is a form of virtue signaling writ large. My first reaction when I read some of its goals was “who wouldn’t want that?” The devil is, as always, in the details.
So what does this lofty “set of goals” call for? Agenda 2021 is as much a plan for “sustainability” as it is for building a more equitable society, which, in my view, is a clever euphemism for world socialism. With respect to Agenda 2030, Alex Newman states in the New American magazine that:
“Perhaps the single most striking feature of Agenda 2030 is the practically undisguised roadmap to global socialism and corporatism/fascism…...which calls on the UN, national governments, and every person on Earth to ‘reduce inequality within and among countries.’ To do that, the agreement continues, will ‘only be possible if wealth is shared and income inequality is addressed.’”
It seems like a noble vision, but who is going to implement and administer this program and how will it be administered?
That is a pretty big question since we know what happens when government entities are granted excessive central power over the people.
Why be so critical? Should we not aim high, even if we fall short of achieving its lofty aims and objectives?
That depends on the cost it takes to achieve them. If we sacrifice too much individual freedom, creative expression and local self-reliance, then aren’t we condemning ourselves to a life of collective mediocrity?
Doesn’t the lack of individual initiative stifle innovation, imagination and moral progress?
Without the foil of individual challenge, are we not limiting the expression of our passion to achieve our true genius as human beings?
Is this just noble cover for the implementation of world socialism?
I urge my fellow citizens to go to the U.N. website and read these documents.
DAVE EVANS
Arden
