Democratic Political Intrigue Not a Story?
Dear Editor,
Isn’t it funny what constitutes a political scandal these days? Last year a Democratic Party operative was shot dead in Washington DC and the police have no culprit, nor any theory about the murder. So someone on behalf of the victim’s family hired a former DC homicide detective turned private investigator to take a look into the mysterious killing. The investigator has just revealed that the operative, Seth Rich, was communicating with WikiLeaks on his laptop in the run up to the presidential election. Well, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to connect the dots here.
What appears to be a third world-style political assassination should be a front page scandal of the highest degree, but our mass media are wringing their hands over what President Donald Trump might have said in a meeting with Russian officials.
Where are today’s Woodward and Bernstein? Why are no journalists investigating this explosive story? The mass media are a de facto arm of the Democratic Party. Just sign me off as An Independent Thinker.
Christopher Rees
Cherish Differences
Dear Editor,
A recent beeper accused Democrats of wanting to ruin our country. I can only hope this person was using a bit of hyperbole. My own perception is that people of both parties want the same basic things: good education for our children, good affordable health care, freedom from pollution, an end to global warming, safety for our citizens, meaningful work, a fair wage, etc. We might disagree on how to achieve these objectives, but nobody wants to ruin our country.
Although I am a Democrat and a fairly progressive thinker, I have many Republican friends who are, in my opinion, good people. I sometimes think they are mistaken in their thinking, and I have no doubt that they sometimes think the same about me. However, we remain friends, and we hold in common most of our hopes and dreams for ourselves, our children, our country, our world.
We must recognize and cherish the many ideals we share and sincerely question those which are different, always asking why you believe this while I believe that. Who knows? We might actually learn from each other instead of automatically discarding the ideas of “the other.”
Maureen Parker
Speaking of Walls
Dear Editor,
We need to build the wall – around Washington, DC.
We need to get all the Congress critters into DC, build the wall (with no openings) and let them do what they do best, which is talk, tear each other up and do nothing to help us. Then find a new location somewhere more centralized in the United States and establish a new capitol, elect real representatives (with term limits) and get back to being what we used to be.
Meanwhile, to make sure the herd in DC stay healthy and keep PETA from losing their minds over cruelty to dumb animals incapable of sustaining themselves, we airlift supplies into them. Maybe occasionally throw in some of the extreme left and right still running loose to keep them amused. In addition, let’s put up a series of dummy news cameras and microphones in various locations and randomly turn them off and on, so they can get exercise running from place to place to get to them. Maybe put observation areas where tourists can go to watch the critters in their natural habitat.
Meantime, we can actually start getting the Peoples business done and return the country to being a constitutional republic instead of a hodge-podge of democracy/socialist/progressive/anarchist soup it is devolving into. We can elect real representatives who will do what they are supposed to be doing. Moreover, if they start morphing into what we have behind the wall, well, we would need to replenish the population there.
In all seriousness, two out of the three branches of government either are or have turned into nothing better than an overly spoiled nursery school with no adult oversight. I don’t care if there’s an R, a D or an I after their name, they have completely lost focus and are leading this country down the road to ruin. They have become more concerned with power then service to the people.
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Go Galt and save the republic.
Alan Marshall
Massacres by Knives
Dear Editor,
I was utterly dismayed by the reader who said they had never heard of a massacre carried out with “just a knife.” Are they kidding? Have they forgotten about the likes of the Manson Family, Richard (Night Stalker) Ramirez, and of course O.J. Simpson? These sadistic killers all had access to guns, but chose knives instead. Why? Because knives are silent. Guns cause noise and noise attracts unwanted attention. And who can forget about Richard Speck, the 1960s drifter who butchered eight student nurses with a Ka-Bar military issue knife? If that wasn’t a massacre, I don’t know what is.
Guns and knives kill by different means. Bullets kill by high-speed kinetic energy and shock waves. Knives kill by causing massive hemorrhaging and blood loss. Nicole Brown Simpson probably died within minutes of being savagely attacked. Both guns and knives are equally lethal in the wrong hands.
Edged weapons have been around for centuries. A razor-sharp samurai sword is just as deadly today as it was centuries ago. I would bet that just as many pioneers died from arrows as they did bullets.
If there are any readers out there that think knives aren’t deadly weapons, they might want to take a little closer look at history.
Jonathan Muffley
GSO Golf Going Great
Dear Editor,
Just when it seemed all media news was addicted to reporting only a biased version of it, our “wide awake” source for local news, the Greensboro News & Record, reported some real “news” of local interest: The 10th ranked Greensboro College Golf Team of the USA South Athletic Conference in Division III just received an at-large invitation to play in the NCAA Division 3 Championship May 16 to May19. This is real news and should be appreciated because most of its players are local or from Canton, North Carolina.
Huntingdon College of Alabama is expected to win and they have an outstanding Greensboro player named Addison Lambeth, who may just be the best player you never heard of. The stars for Greensboro College are juniors and talented twins, Levi and Luke Grogan (Canton), and freshmen Grant Powell (Northwest) and Scott Campbell (East Forsyth) of Greensboro. Any of these four are capable of winning individual honors, and tiny little Greensboro College has enough talent to win it all. That’s what 10th ranked dreams are made of.
Ray Hylton
Get Back in Line
Dear Editor,
No one seeks after God on his or her initiative. God takes the initiative to pursue a continuing love relationship with you. That love relationship is very real, personal and practical.
More than anything else that you might do, God wants you to love him with your total being. He created you for that very purpose. If your love relationship with him is out of line, everything else related to knowing, doing and experiencing God’s will will be messed up.
When you find you are not receiving assignments from the Lord, focus your attention on the love relationship. God may be waiting until you respond to his loving invitation to a relationship before entrusting an assignment to you.
Rev. E.M. Scoggin
Protecting Juveniles
Dear Editor,
The New York state government recently did the right thing. They will no longer try 16-year-olds as adults. That means that North Carolina is the last state that tries children under the age of 18 as adults.
I don’t think that 16- and 17-year-olds should be tried as adults unless they commit a violent crime like rape, murder or kidnapping. Children under the age of 18 can’t legally smoke and drink, vote, run for office or serve on juries. They should not be treated as adults by the legal system.
On the other hand I would not object if 16- and 17-year-olds were given the right to vote and other adult rights. The government of our state isn’t going to extend adult rights to children, so children should not be tried as adults. One goal of the governor, General Assembly and courts should be to start removing all juveniles and minor children from adult jails, prisons and detention facilities.
Chuck Mann
Keep the Peace
Dear Editor,
Twenty years ago, after much searching throughout Guilford County for a wooded country setting to build our home, we chose Summerfield. This was due in large part because Summerfield had been incorporated to keep it from becoming an extension of Greensboro with its strip malls, dense housing and congestion so we knew we would be safe from that kind of encroachment. A year later someone wanted to buy part of our property to build their home, but they wanted to cut all the trees down to create pasture for their horses. We chose not to sell to them because we didn’t want to give up our dream of living in a wooded paradise out in the country so they could realize their dream of open pasture. There are many other areas where they could realize their dream without destroying ours. We and our neighbors then wrote up covenants to preserve the beautiful setting we enjoy no matter who should buy any of our properties in the future.
The same thing can be said for the Town of Summerfield. Years ago its residents chose to keep the area rural and as natural as possible, so they incorporated the town and established ordinances on what type of building and development could be done in an effort to preserve what made it special, including access to plentiful good water. That is the dream of the people of Summerfield and we don’t feel it is our obligation to give up our dream so those who want dense housing and local retail stores or builders to make the most profit can have theirs. Our dream is worth keeping and those who want something different can find many other areas to create theirs.
Is there one person on the Summerfield Town Council who is eager to have a shopping center, condo, apartment building or “planned development” built adjacent to their home and destroy their dream of an uncluttered, rural way of life with good water supply? Our hearts ache for those who have had their peaceful, neighborhoods compromised by the unavoidable new state highway construction. We should not inflict further injury and permanent damage on any other neighborhoods by forcing retail and high density housing on them.
Let’s keep the Summerfield dream intact. Compromise is not progress. It is just giving up.
Glenn Ogden
Send to letters@rhinotimes.com or P.O. Box 9023, Greensboro 27429