Honest arguments are valid

To the editor:
I am responding in sorts to Mr. Randy Harmon’s recent letter headlined “Reader says Barack Obama is ‘evil’”.
To begin with, I will not make a personal assault on Mr. Harmon, as he did to Mr. Glenn Priest. I don’t know Mr. Harmon personally so I wish not to make any speculations about him as a person.
I will make the speculation that Mr. Harmon watches too much Fox News and believes their “propaganda”. Don’t anyone misunderstand me, all of the media giants skew their news reports one way or the other and we choose to watch and believe one and sometimes more of them.
We need to quit listening to and believing the talking points of either party and the media and look at the reality of what is happening in this country and the world. We, as viewers, are giving the media the right to continue their lies to Americans, for their political and viewership benefit. Myself, I have given up American news and listen only to NHK news from Japan to get the main headlines.
I admit that I’m a “liberal progressive.” I have little faith in our politicians and their associated parties, since they work for the good of their corporate backers, rather than the American people. What we need are authentic politicians who will strive for compassionate actions toward all people and not show discrimination against those they choose not to be helpful or compassionate for.
We must remember where a large portion of the national debt has come from, two unpaid for wars, the War in Afghanistan and Iraq, and political pork that was put on “the national credit card” for future generations. I realize that to many this is old news, but the reality is it is the truth and must be acknowledged as the source of the debt.
There is no war on Christianity, just differing views on how it belongs in our society. Most people do not want a theocracy and to live under religious law, i.e. Sharia. Are we to elect the Pope as President of the U.S.? I don’t think that’s what people really want in America. We’ve seen the Taliban, the Iranian mullahs and, supposedly, al-Qaeda in action for that. We need to use love and compassion and not hatred to resolve our differences and problems. That is a real “Christian”/religious belief thought by many on the left.
Class warfare? Many of us are not pleased with the income inequality in our world today due to corporate greed. I guess that those on the right side are in full agreement with the meager life that our gigantic corporations wish to offer us so that they can make billions of dollars profit every year. It’s either that or they don’t wish to go against their talking points to disagree with the financial situation we’re allowed.
It is also a fact that the Affordable Care Act was not only a Heritage Foundation concept, but is modeled after Mitt Romney’s healthcare for the state of Massachusetts. Please, someone, explain how that makes this a socialist plan. A more “socialist” healthcare plan would have been Medicare for all or some other single-payer, non-insurance company plan.
Where are the Republican jobs bills? They talk about not enough jobs being created, but where are their ideas? They refuse to help a Democratic administration, especially a President that isn’t a white male. A lack of employment causes people to seek any form of assistance and there usually is no other source for assistance than the government. It’s not lazy people that want the government to take care of them, but people in true need. There will always be a few scofflaws/cheats though.
As for President Barack Obama being “evil”, he is far from “evil”. He’s no more “evil” than the Republicans would “allow” a Democrat to call George W. Bush “evil”. Evil is what Adolf Hitler did in the Holocaust with the Jewish people and others he decided were undesirables.
Honest arguments are valid to use. It is improper to use skewed arguments to provide a point, be it either side of an argument.
Daniel E. Chase
Portland[[In-content Ad]]