Honor veterans with deeds, action
I was too early for the free meal at Golden Corral, but I did get the discount at Publix. I'm too tired to go to the free concert. I guess there were parades and wreath laying. But wait a minute, wait a gosh-darn minute: Does anyone really, I mean really, want to honor veterans?
Let's start with an active overhaul of the VA medical system. Give back the full 2 percent pay raise to active military (most now veterans). Maintain the military cemetery at the abandoned Clark Air Base in the Philippines. We need a law, at the state or local level, assuring that no one can be refused permission to fly or display the national colors along with a military banner of choice.
These are just a few suggestions. Want to honor vets? Do it with actions, not words; deeds not rhetoric. You can still say 'thank you for your service.' It is appreciated, but let's get those feet and pens moving, too.
Herb Wilkins
Hixson
Carr and his ilk afraid of the light
Poor reactionary Joe Carr, the Murfreesboro pitchforks and torches candidate for U.S. Senate. Jittery Joe is joined by other Chicken Little alarm-pullers running around squawking and trembling that learning about Islam will result in school children becoming terrorists.
That was the same argument that ignorant state and church authoritarians made about Socrates, Copernicus, Galileo, Washington, Jefferson, Darwin, Einstein, Hubble and others who sought to bring light to superstitions and political tyranny.
Joe, your fear-mongering will work with the backward, uneducated and unscientific, and those fearful of education like the Taliban, ISIS and the Westboro Baptist Church crowd. Fundamentalism is always afraid the curtain will be pulled back and bright light and fresh air will expose the vapid content, authoritarian rulers and suppression of knowledge that instills fear and looks to political and religious dictators.
So Joe, please descend into that rabbit hole you've dug, take your Dark Ages-frightened followers with you and let the rest of us bask in the light of learning, knowledge and freedom from church and state repression.
Stephen Greenfield
Cleveland, Tenn.
Parents: Don't teach Islam
On Oct. 25, TFP editors responded to parents' complaints about teaching Islam in world history: "Teaching World History Means World Not America" and "Don't Fear World History Courses."
Teaching world history isn't the problem. It is Islam. Islam is a hodgepodge of religion and politics. It is a state ruled by the laws of Allah, dictated by self-appointed Allah's shadows, preaching jihad and glorified death, and martyrdom throughout history. Many religions are taught. Only Islam created sharp divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims and presupposed a permanent state of war.
It is contrary to American thought. One editor suggests, "It is up to each of us to be our own best translators and to know that we all come from one creator and we all live on this one Earth - no matter how we describe that creation or what we call the creator."
This short answer is a big problem. Parents do not want their children exposed to an Islamic theology and ideology so domineering it can impact children adversely. Let's not downgrade the intelligence of American parents by calling them Islamophobics, bigots and wrongheaded in defense of Islam.
Amos Taj
Ooltewah
Evangelicals vote their convictions
In response to a Nov. 3 letter to the editor: My great-great-grandfather and his brother, an Alabama state senator, were Union supporters but were against slavery because of their Christian values. Many Democrats in the South were for slavery and later were in the KKK, but some of today's Democrats don't want to admit that.
The letter writer says "the most vulnerable, impressionable, auto-suggestive group for votes" targeted by Republicans are "the Southern evangelical fundamentalists. They avoid addressing domestic or international issues about which this group knows or cares little."
I am a retired teacher and an evangelical Christian. I am definitely not vulnerable or impressionable, read widely, and study both domestic and international issues (like my Republican friends). As stated by the writer, the Republicans haven't overturned Roe v. Wade or separation of church and state, and marriage is no longer just between one man and one woman. He says, "The Southern religious right continues to vote as it is led. Is this weird or what?" No, it isn't weird. We vote according to biblical conviction. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with party affiliation.
Sandra Harris
Cloudland, Ga.
Headline conveys anti-gun stance
The headline of a recent TFP article about an AR-15 rifle raffled at the Chattooga County Republican Party was misleading. It conveyed the message that the gun was raffled illegally when, in fact, it was the raffle that was illegal.
The headline, "Republicans raffled gun without mandated license," clearly shows the anti-gun bias of the Times Free Press and the support of the liberal, progressive, Democrat party platform.
Further reading of the article reveals that a proper license for the raffle itself may not have been obtained because the raffle is considered gambling. So the same crime could have been committed if any item was raffled. The majority of your readers, including myself, are conservative and ardently support 2nd Amendment rights, but many only read the headlines and will take away a false understanding from the article.
This type of journalism is underhanded, has no place in a society built on freedom of the press and prompts me to reconsider my subscription.
Roger Bartness
Ooltewah
Liberal media bias lack is laughable
It is laughable that a recent letter writer from Sewanee does not think the media has a left-leaning bias and thinks reporters don't adhere to either political party.
It is telling that she believes that depth and breadth of knowledge are often what make people liberal and a vast swath of everybody else does not understand, absorb and is so easily swayed to think otherwise.
This confirms my thought that liberals think they are smarter and believe they should tell everyone else how to think and live their lives. We have more of this happening than this country needs now.
Charles O. Mason Jr.
Don't be fooled by 'People's' groups
In a recent TFP front page story, "Poll: Global warming no big deal," the author left out a very important fact.
The "People's Climate March," held Sept. 21 in conjunction with the United Nations meeting on climate change, included members of the Communist Party USA and the Socialist Party USA along with labor unions.
Readers need to be aware that we have very active communist and socialist parties working within our political system. Any time you see an organization titled "People's" something, be careful. It's probably a communist or socialist organization. China's Communist Party is the "People's Party."
Byron J. Hendrix
Cleveland, Tenn.
Carson not living in real world
The gravamen of the Ben Carson flap is not so much the specter of a faulty memory, the political irrelevance of his assertions or the underpinnings of his beliefs but rather how far from reality his thinking seems to stray.
Above all else, a president needs to be grounded in the real world. Whoever next occupies the Oval Office and meets eye to eye with tough-minded world leaders must realize he or she didn't fly in under a rainbow riding a unicorn.
Denny Pistoll
Rising Fawn, Ga.