To the Editor:
I awakened the morning after the election with a pervasive sense of sadness. It was as if there had been a death in the family.
That almost ineffable American love of liberty and justice and hope has been replaced by fear and a world made more complicated and fearsome by those who gain by hatred and fear. The political landscape has transmogrified into a strange and alien place. God save our nation.
Kingsley Hooker
Memphis
To the Editor:
How utterly pathetic that in deciding to violate its 15-year policy of not endorsing candidates, the Flyer should have done so for a pusillanimous proctocephalic like John Kerry, an empty suit who could not even garner total support from his own base. The kind of liberalism that provides such a distorted view of reality as to permit such a choice simply confirms my conviction that it truly is a mental aberration.
Donald E. Hampson
Memphis
Editor’s note: “asshead”?
To the Editor:
I watched George W. Bush bumble through his post-election press conference. It’s a rare event, and I thought a good old-fashioned “Bushism” might cheer me up.
As the meaningless rhetoric dripped off his forked tongue, the one thing that haunted me was his claim that the best way to protect America is to spread liberty. If history tells us anything, this means more invasions, more war, and more misleading information.
Yes, freedom is on the march, but unfortunately, it is leaving piles of rubble in its wake.
T.D. Cripps
Memphis
To the Editor:
In his letter to the editor (November 4th issue), Doug Logan suggests that the Democrats should present a candidate with conservative views on the topics of abortion and homosexuality in order to win the Southern states.
I have a better suggestion: How about if the Southern states redefine their conceptions of morality and freedom, observe the separation of church and state, and learn to vote based on the common good?
As a 21-year-old heterosexual female from Georgia, I reject the notion of compromising in a fight for human rights just to get a vote. Maybe what Logan really meant to suggest was: “Why don’t the Democrats nominate a Republican?”
Liz Wiedemann
Memphis
To the Editor:
Conservative Republicans would vote for the devil himself if he could put an end to abortion and gay marriage. They couldn’t care less about a gazillion-dollar deficit or whether Saddam Hussein complied with the U.N. resolutions about developing WMD. They don’t care if over 1,100 Americans have died needlessly in Iraq. They don’t care if prisoners were tortured and killed and sequestered in secret locations in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Kerry actually put the nail in his own coffin in the final debate by saying he would not consider any nominee for the Supreme Court who opposed Roe v. Wade. The conservative base came out in record numbers to send a clear and unmistakable message: If Kerry or anyone else tries to stop our cause to protect unborn life or legitimize a gay person’s desire to practice “unholy” acts in the bonds of “holy matrimony,” then they will make you pay a price.
Joe M. Spitzer
Memphis
Values?
To the Editor:
When are Americans going to wake up and realize that religious extremists constitute the greatest threat to the United States, much as they do in the rest of the world? A case in point is the furor being raised over Republican senator Arlen Specter’s comments regarding Roe v. Wade. Talk radio is working in concert with religious right-wingers. Aggressive anti-abortionists are the same voters who just bought into the “values” package that put Bush back in the White House. I thought values meant civility, caring, and love, as Jesus taught. All I see is hypocrisy and hate being flaunted by these fundamentalists.
Ron Lowe
Nevada City, California
