Letters to the Editor Policy

All-American Hatemongers

During the Cold War, when so many people were all agog about the threat of International Communism, a significant segment of the American Right devoted most of their energies to fighting Liberals at home, rather than Communists abroad. The hysteria got so bad that people who were not at all Communist were being accused of it, groundlessly and irresponsibly, and their patriotism was assailed.

Today, with the Cold War well in the past, the paranoids are perversely delighted to have another threat to be in a dither about: International Jihadism. And once again, they spend most of their time sniping at Liberals here and doing nothing about terrorists there. Once again, Liberals are falsely accused of pro-Islamic radicalism and of being un-American.

Isn't it amazing how nothing has changed? The same types of aberrant characters are spawned from the fetid swamp of right-wing culture. Young people who were not alive when the Berlin Wall came down are all over the Internet, spewing venom at Liberals. They take their cues from the rabid right-wing media of Limbaugh, Hannity and Coulter, and that ilk. It's a Bizarro World, where John Kerry is a traitor, Ted Kennedy is a calculating murderer, and Hillary Clinton is a lesbian harpy in a sham marriage. Where Liberals hate America, and not only identify with radical Islam, but they even want to surrender to it.

If the Far Right wants to play a useful role in the War on Terrorism, they should first stop dividing America. Stop making ridiculous false equations of Liberalism and Islamic radicalism. Frankly, it is ultra-conservatives who more closely resemble them. Islam, after all, is an intensely conservative religion. Like American rightists, they can hardly grasp the notion that religion and government are best separated. Both are rankled by any openness about sexuality in the culture. And both, not surprisingly, hate and oppose Liberalism.

Liberalism is the alternative to Islamism, not its handmaiden. Get that right, Rightists, and you'll earn the thoughtful consideration of the rest of America.

Sincerely,

Stephen Van Eck

Rushville, PA

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