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You call that green?
“Green Issue,” my ass. I’ve never seen such a conflicted publication. First, according to core samples at landfills, it’s not disposable diapers, but newspapers (including Oklahoma Gazette) and Yellow Pages taking up all that space. Next Greg Horton sings the praises of a so-called man of God who denigrates the Bible, the basis for the Christian faith.
Then we see the elevation of vegan cuisine followed by celebrations of gyros, burgers, sausages, Cuban sandwiches, and more burgers on pages 34 and 35; not to mention all the gluttonous ads for meat and the exploitation of women, followed by a story about the female experience purporting to benefit womanhood.
It’s hard being a liberal, isn’t it?
—Tom Furlong Oklahoma City
Respect the office
In response to Dick J. Brooks’ letter (“He deserves no respect,” April 18, Gazette): I would start by pointing out the flawed logic in Brooks’ “hypothetical situation” where he states that “whatever happened in the past to cause the debt situation is gone.”
This is simply not the case with regard to our federal debt situation or our economic situation at the time that President Obama took office, and it does not hold now. The long-term effects of 30 years of government deregulation of economic markets; privatization of public services; de-investment in our nation’s infrastructure; easing of tax burdens upon the wealthiest 1 percent of the population, and the maintenance of a constant state of war in this country (standing professional armies, conflicts and associated costs) have had, and will continue to have, long-term effects that no single president — of whatever party affiliation — will be able to adequately address.
I’ll ignore the rest of Brooks’ polemic, since they are essentially ad hominem arguments with no factual validity.
Whether you agree with his policies or oppose them, President Obama is, at least until next January, the president of the U.S. You do not have to respect the man, but you must respect the office.
Throwing around straw-man arguments and ad hominem attacks as a cover for disrespecting the office is itself disrespectful, and is all too easily seen in these days of “Murdochracy,” in which “crackpot history and the right to lie,” as Adam Ant called it, takes the place of actual civil discourse in the public sphere.
—Glen Garcia Edmond
The Bible and Liberty Ha ha ha hahaha. OK, let me get this straight. State Rep. Sally Kern introduced a bill (House Bill 1552) that would have declared any court action “void and unenforceable” if the ruling was based on code that withholds any “fundamental liberties, rights and privileges granted under the United States and Oklahoma Constitutions.”
Two words, Sally: the Bible. As a code, it wreaks havoc on basic freedoms and liberties guaranteed to U.S. citizens. This is probably why state senators killed your bill, Sally. Without the Bible as principle supporting code, all of those “personhood,” so-called pro-life and anti-LGBT bills and statutes would have to be tossed out with the trash, where they belong.
—Howard Koerth Oklahoma City
Opinions expressed on the commentary page, in letters to the editor and elsewhere in this newspaper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of ownership or management.
