In a recent letter to the editor, Mr. David Aycock wrote a kind of rebuttal to the “dire picture of our country” portrayed by a “frequent letter writer to this newspaper.” I’m assuming that is me, and will, if permitted, give a reply to Mr. Aycock’s observation.
He is 100% right that we tend to live in a “community of people who are very decent and respectful of one another” and that, in general, when people talk to one another, the exchanges are polite and respectful, even if they disagree.
Fayette County and many other communities are still blessed with such civil comity and for that, I am truly thankful and attribute that to the basic goodness of all Americans, something I have mentioned many times in my letters. Of course, I include “Democrats” in that category.
However, when I criticize Democrats and Leftists, I am not really talking about the average voter, but about the activists and hyper partisans of the party. I am sorry, Mr. Aycock, but in spite of the pleasant surroundings we get to enjoy in our little enclave here south of Atlanta, things just aren’t so pleasant in other quarters, especially in Washington, D.C.
I made the mistake of turning on MSNBC for 2 minutes the other day and saw a panel talk about how the Republicans are currently trying to engineer a fascist takeover of our country because they don’t back the ridiculous changes to our country’s election laws currently favored by the Democrats.
This wasn’t a minor case of disagreement, or an example of live and let live. This is one side of the aisle unabashedly accusing the other of fascism because even though the Democrats control the Legislative and Executive branches, they can’t muster enough support even on their own side to foist their increasingly extreme agenda on the nation. They will not accept the democratic outcome of the election and the limitations to their aspirations therein.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Attorney General is accusing Georgia of passing its recent election law for specifically “racist” reasons with no facts to back it up, Democrats continue their campaign of accusing our country of being irredeemably racist, homophobic, etc., and the press seem more interested in coddling and protecting Biden than in actually reporting on his policies and sordid history of corruption and ineptitude.
So, while things are pretty hunky dory in our neck of the woods, that doesn’t mean that we should be quiet when we see injustice, lies, and malign conspiracies dominate the political discourse, or when we see real and obvious threats to our liberty and constitutional form of government.
(Thankfully, my earlier prediction of a “soft coup” — which Mr. Aycock no doubt thinks to be hyperbole — has been largely thwarted by cooler heads in the Democratic Party who know that if their party packs the court, adds states, and eviscerates election law integrity, they will lose the only thing that matters to them: their office.)
I long for the day when I will no longer feel compelled to write these letters. It gives me no pleasure to see what is happening in our country and I long to reside peacefully in the pleasures of family, friends, and faith. But I cannot do so while Rome seems to be burning. As the wise man said, all that has to be done for evil to win is for good men and women to remain silent.
Sadly, I do believe we are faced with evil from certain, specific quarters and therefore I cannot remain silent myself.
If I am wrong and my assertions are incorrect, please show me where. I’d love nothing more than to be wrong about these things.
In the meantime, Mr. Aycock, I welcome your more anodyne approach and wish we could all take that view and just enjoy the simple joys of good neighbors and happy communities. I wish nothing else for our great nation.
Trey Hoffman
Peachtree City, Ga.
“They will not accept the democratic outcome of the election and the limitations to their aspirations therein.”
Mr. Hoffman may seem level headed, reasonable, and may make a good point every now and then. But he, and many of his GOP cohorts, live in an alternate reality. There is no reasoning, bargaining, or convincing these deluded individuals. Mr. Hoffman must lead a sad and angry life.
Honestly, what is needed is an anti-Trey Hoffman. Hear me out:
Mr Aycock’s letter was really a spiteful attack on Hoffman disguised as an appeal to our better nature. Had he not started with a misrepresentation of Trey’s statements and then detoured through citing popular tropes about political factions in our country before arriving at that appeal, it would have been a good letter on its own merits. Instead, it was a swing and a miss that leaves Hoffman as the king of the hill for the Letters to the Editors column.
So I will repeat my challenge – write your own letters. At some point, at least one Leftist among the readership here is going to have to put on their big boy pants and begin regularly writing letters that articulate a coherent vision of a society from a left wing perspective. The abject failure to have done so already seems to indicate that there is no such vision, or at least nobody who believes in it enough have their name associated with it.
PTCitizen–
I can’t imagine anyone subjecting themselves to your “challenge”.
Their writing would have to be brilliant in content and letter-perfect in execution…and still they would come up against your relentless criticism.
If Jesus, Himself, would submit the perfect blueprint for His kingdom in The Sermon on the Mount as a Letter to the Editor
you would no doubt lecture Him on his rudimentary knowledge and shallow understanding of Christianity.
Followed by a dismantling of the Beatitudes.
And concluding with a final insult aimed at His followers.
Ummm…I’ll go with the “running” gag I enjoy so much–
“Blessed are the liberal clowns, for they shall be ridiculously shod.”
As always, feel free to practice on my flawed musings until a better writer comes along.
Suz you are so right! PTCitizen lives to eat commenters alive, imagine what he would do with a genuine liberal letter writer. I still love this from a previous comments section — kind of goes along with what you said …
PTCITIZEN IN RELY TO MY COMMENT:
I’m not sure which is more impressive: The complete lack of factual statement, the toxic attitude, the overwhelming gaslighting, or the fact that it took you 10 paragraphs to write what could have been accomplished in two.
COMMENT IN REPLY TO PTCITIZEN …
MLK: So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.
PTCITIZEN: I’m not sure which is more impressive: The complete lack of factual statement, the toxic attitude, the overwhelming gaslighting, or the fact that it took you 10 paragraphs to write what could have been accomplished in two.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
VJax–
I’m beginning to think we have a
similar sense of humor. Or perhaps
of the absurd.
I, too, was pondering great speeches…and how they would fare, facing PTCitizen’s caustic comments (much like your submission of Dr. King’s
masterpiece, “I Have A Dream”).
Here is my suggestion on the after-
math of President Lincoln’s Gettys-
burg Address–
PTC–
I almost spit out a mouthful of hot coffee when I heard your speech at Gettysburg.
“Four Score and Seven”?! Quite a pretentious opening from a clodhopper from Kentucky.
And the remainder of your speech went down hill from there.
I suppose it has never occurred to you that the “battle” at Gettysburg was a set-up. Facts show that the field was a mostly peaceful picnic venue, filled with happy families.
But by all means, “honest” Abe, go
ahead and declare that land hallowed–one more cemetery you can use as evidence that our country is in the midst of civil unrest. Be sure to blame it on racial inequality while you’re at it.
As a true patriot, I would ask you and your followers to name one country that is living any closer to your own words than our own great country–“conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”!
I’ll wait.
Ha ha ha! That’s it! If PTCitizen ever quits the field, you and I can pick up for him/her and never miss a beat! ROFL!!!
“As a true patriot, I would ask you and your followers to name one country that is living any closer to your own words than our own great country–conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’!
I’ll wait.”
EXACTLY! LMAO!
To be fair, VJax,
I imagine my own comments could all be condensed down into one simple syrup–
“suz–
It’s all a gift.
Let’s take care of one another; especially remembering the marginalized.
Let the same mind be in us that is in the Universal Christ.
One Father/Mother of all.
And read Richard Rohr!”
PTCitizen seems to tolerate me, more or less, insufferable as I must be.
I appreciate him being a
good sport.
You are human, and therefore have intrinsic value.
That gauntlet has been thrown down numerous times on this site, PTCitizen – even by the original authors of the Letters to the Editor. They were mainly focused toward the resident blowfish, but the challenge has never been accepted. Guess its just as well, all of his grandiloquent paragraphs written here over the years can be broken down to the same three bullet points anyway.
There certainly seems to be a formula.