Cartoon points to party differences
Thanks to Mike Luckovich (Chattanooga Times, Sept. 1, page B6) for a cartoon that highlights the key difference [between] liberal and conservative thinking.
He compares students who willingly accepted money they didn't earn with a promise to pay it off and the government "forgiving" their greed to people who worked hard for their money, which the government takes from them in taxes.
But when the Republicans voted to let them keep their own money, somehow that was the same thing as students not ever paying back money that was never theirs to begin with, and they spent it freely.
I couldn't have explained it better myself to the people who only look at the pictures in a book. Only the non-thinking followers of nonsense see these as comparable. Thank you, Mike, for showing us all clearly this obvious distinction. Remember it when you vote.
Brad Chase
Soddy-Daisy
Trump floating false conspiracies
I have been accused of "detesting Republicans with the heat of a thousands suns." That's not exactly correct. I love Republicans like former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who said, "Former president Donald Trump is a danger to our nation." Kasich thinks other Republicans are beginning to see the light, but he "couldn't understand what took them so long." I agree!
I dearly love Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who was willing to give up her seat in Congress to honor her oath to the Constitution. She is a true patriot who also knows Trump is dangerous.
Trump is doing something Hitler couldn't. He's using his influence to chip away at the foundation of our nation. The men and women who died fighting Nazi Germany would be appalled. He undermines the FBI by calling them "vicious monsters" for doing their job in retrieving 11,179 classified documents belonging to the American people. Trump took them to Mar-a-Lago, I believe, to either sell or destroy. What else? Write a book?
I do say to all those who still support Trump: It's detestable! Don't you care that he floats baseless conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy?
Wilbourne C. Markham Sr.
Signal Mountain
Biden's false image of all GOP
I am an 80-year-old lifelong Republican woman. About your "red speech," President Biden, I beg to disagree.
I am not a threat to the republic. I always vote. I have voted for every Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon, including, of course, Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. If he is the nominee in 2024, I will vote for him again. I have worked the polls in three jurisdictions. I am college-educated and retired from professional employment. I stand and sing the national anthem; I salute the flag. I honor the military and the police. I pay my taxes and my bills. I take care of my property and respect my neighbors. I raised my children to think for themselves.
I do not demonstrate. I do not riot, break windows, destroy businesses or burn cities. I do not think that those who disagree with me politically are evil, merely misguided. And I most certainly do not wear silly pink lady-part hats and screech in the public square when my candidate of choice does not win.
I am not a threat to the republic. And I heartily resent and reject, Mr. President, that characterization of me and 70 million plus others.
Beverly M. Richards
Trenton, Ga.
Are we flagging our road ragers?
An article in the Sept. 2 TFP tells of yet another incident of a middle-aged white man terrorizing a woman and her son because she "cut him off" in traffic. His rage was to the point that he followed her several miles and accosted her in her friend's driveway. Although the police knew who this thug was since Aug. 22, he was allowed to turn himself in a full nine days later. Why was he given this convenience?
This incident is similar to another road rage incident I read in the TFP a few weeks ago. Again, a white, middle-aged man from Hixson terrorized a woman and her children in the same manner.
Have these men been flagged so they cannot own weapons? If not, why? They are obviously out of control with their anger and are a menace to the community.
Becky Nelsen
‘Opportunity’ still knocks on the door
During my childhood, in a peaceful cul-de-sac of suburbia, playing required knocking on doors. A knock on the door meant tree houses, roller hockey and video games. A knock on the door always meant opportunity.
And opportunity knocked for people of all ages. Coffee dates, dessert plates and juicy gossip about the Andersons arrived with a knock. A rendezvous arrived with three knocks! Tap, tap, tap on a window sash at midnight meant opportunity of a more nefarious sort ... like when it's time to smash the pumpkins on Halloween. For sure, a knock was the best type of interruption. Everything else truly could wait.
These days, I am often amused at how the imposition of a knock at the door brings feelings of dread. Is there a fire? Did someone die? Are the police looking for a witness? This happened to me last night. Jolted from the chair in my library, these thoughts raced through my mind. Back in reality, opportunity knocked ... again! My neighbors brought ice cream, and we shared stories from the week.
Go knock on your neighbor's door. And don't forget the ice cream.
James Fleming
Let Jesus restore your true identity
If this pandemic has revealed anything, it's that we all sense a brokenness, an emptiness, in ourselves and in our world. Much of our lives revolve around filling the void. Addictions. Achievements. Programs designed to fix us.
Such "busyness" numbs our souls, but not forever. Even our most successful neighbors long for something more.
Here's the truth: We were made by God, for God. Yet, if we do life apart from our Creator, how can we understand our identity, our purpose, our value? Without God, we become pages ripped out of a book -- lives out of context. No amount of Netflix or whiskey or riches or exercise or therapies or dream jobs can replace connection with God.
That's why 2,000 years ago, God sent his only son, Jesus Christ -- God in the flesh -- to love us, die for our sins and resurrect from the dead. I'm not talking religion, traditions or good deeds. Too many work for God without ever knowing God. No, I'm talking about God becoming more real than what we see or touch. I'm talking about an intimacy with God that makes us whole. Jesus reconnects us to God. Call upon Jesus, and you will be saved.
Rebecca Marsh
GOP like slavers in Lincoln's day
In his 1860 Cooper Union speech, Abraham Lincoln spoke of how slave power was leading the country toward disunion. This sentiment might apply to what Republican leaders today say to Donald Trump's devoted MAGA faithful. Slavers -- and Republicans today -- are right to "enforce their position by all truthful evidence and fair argument ... but [they] have no right to mislead [others] who have less access to history and the leisure to study it ... [They substitute] falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair argument."
Today we see a rise in militias, media distortions, party goals taking preeminence, election results denials and a Capitol riot, congressional obstructionism, conservative think tanks devising ways to eliminate liberal ideals, and refusals to testify. A Republican senator has warned of "blood in the streets" if Trump is criminally charged.
Lincoln's concluding words ring true for Americans today who see the calamity of Trumpism: "Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government nor of dungeons to ourselves. ... Right makes might, and ... let us ... dare to do our duty as we understand it."
Grady S. Burgner
Ooltewah