“‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, ‘To talk of many things.’” This quote from Lewis Carroll is the gist of this offering. That is to say, how many different items in our paper can I respond to in one letter?
Let’s begin with Jack Schutte’s letter suggesting that I do more research, presumably on democracies and Democratic Republics. Well, Mr. Schutte is the one who wrote “we have a republic, not a democracy.” (Jan. 17) and later says, “”U.S. is not a democracy” (Feb 2, 2024). President Reagan in his Westminster speech mentions the word “democracy” 16 times, so he must have felt that it was important.
Now, on to Tom Patterson’s “Biden inexplicably helps Iran to achieve nuclear arms” (Jan. 30, 2024). In this letter, he states, “The West seemingly insists on not paying much attention, but observant Muslims, which is most of them, make no bones about it. It is a tenant of the faith that eventually all non-Muslims will convert, die or live in subjugation to Muslims. It is the duty of all faithful Muslims to devote their life to jihad, i,e, striving to bring about that day when sharia law rules the world.” He continues with “Their lack of success . . . ,” etc. When I did my research, I learned that Islam is in fact growing much faster than Christianity so I would not refer to this as a “lack of success.” However, from my perspective, it is much more likely that I will run into Christians trying to take over the world, in the form of Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons, among others, than Muslims. Over the last thousand years or so, I think you will find that Islamic Law was much kinder to the Jews than Christian Law. Remember that the Holocaust was brought about by Christian Germans, Poles and Ukrainians and the word “pogrom” was coined to describe the attacks and massacres of Jews in the Christian Russian Empire. To better understand what jihad and shariah are about don’t take versions such as Patterson’s straw man ones seriously, go to an Islamic web site and see what they have to say.
And finally we come to the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives Ben Tomi’s HB 2629 bill that Arizona schools must include: “At least 45 minutes of instruction on the history of Communist regimes around the world and the prevalence of poverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence and suppression of speech under Communist regimes. Education persuant to this secion may include any of the following: 1. Mao Zedong and the cultural revolution; 2. Joseph Stalin and the Soviet system; 3. Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution; 4. Vladimir Lenin and the Russian revolution; 5. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge; 6. Nicols Maduro and the Chavismo movement.”
Let me here state that I am not, nor ever have been, a member of the Communist Party. I find most everything about their typically authoritarian style of ruling to be abhorrent. However, I find Rep. Tomi’s suggestion that our government should be determining the content of what is taught in our public schools to also be objectionable. And, I am quite sure, that were the so-called “radical left” to gain control of the Arizona government and should they consider dictating what content must be taught in public schools, that Mr. Tomi would be the first to proclaim that this is not the government’s place. Until that moment arrives, I will say it, “this is not the government’s place.”
