I am writing in response to the editorial cartoon depicting President Obama shooting an automatic rifle (The Citizen Opinion pages, Feb. 14, 2018). This depiction is offensive; not something I would want a child or adult to see.
It is not a matter of whether I did or did not support his presidency. It is offensive because of the unbridled hatred the scene depicts.
Hatred does not come from another person’s actions, it comes from the hater. The hater is the person who cannot control their emotions and can only lash out in an extreme manner, unable to cope with their feelings. Much like a bully would behave.
The cartoon shows a weakness within the individual, not an action caused by the other person. The first sign of a bully is the bully’s ability to blame someone, anyone else, for their feelings and actions.
They cannot see that they are the weak one, the one unable to control their emotions or actions. It must be someone else’s fault, it can’t be their fault, their mental weakness. Everyone else must pay for their feelings and it must be in a extreme way. The bully’s solution is to bomb everything to smithereens to resolve a problem.
No – the problem is the bully, the extremist, not the other way around. And Mr. Beverly, our community is a lesser place for allowing this depiction to be in a neighborhood newspaper.
David Allman
Peachtree City, Ga.
