America is hurting! It’s a national disgrace that America is becoming a fortress in many ways. It’s a shame that poll workers can’t do their job without people with guns trying to intimidate them. It’s a shame that voters can’t drop off their vote without running a gantlet of buffoons with guns. It’s a shame that Supreme Court justices are living in fear brought on by their own political decisions. It’s a shame our Congress people are living in fear because of their beliefs and lawmaking. It’s a shame that our kids can’t go to school without fear of being shot.
People like Sen. Joe McCarthy, President Congressman Newt Gingrich and now Donald Trump have created this mess and, not surprising, they are all Republicans!
Bill Williams
Palmview
Religion now
just a product
Churches are really just places of business today. Religion is selling a beautifully packaged, narrowly functional product to consumers. This product is like a pharmaceutical that has a specific and predictable effect on individual health. Unfortunately, the religious product does not have a very comprehensive effect on society’s overall health and wellness.
Churches are selling how to believe like Jesus and live life like Jesus. Problem is, the ancient book that provides the basis for this instruction is read today as a book about sexual morality, personal ethics and families, and Jesus is seen as a teacher of mainly these things.
But the Bible is a book about the history of an ancient democratic society. The priests, pastors and rabbis who study it today are not trained historians, so the book they exercise guardianship over is not particularly comprehensible to them. A doctrine that restricts itself to honesty, sexual ethics, sacraments and love misses a huge part of Jesus’ teaching, the part about society, law, economics and government.
How are we going to recover that part, and learn who Jesus really was and what he really taught?
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
Political
power
Greg Abbott blamed the winter power outage on green energy. But now The Monitor is telling me that Texans saved Texas $7 billion on their power bills and will reach $11 billion by year’s end. Without green energy, the average Texan would pay $18 more per megawatt hour. If you vote Republican, you need to send those savings to the fossil fuel industry or Donald Trump.
Abbott on Oct. 17 sounded more like an advocate for the state’s growing renewable energy sector. After the election, will Abbott still support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s green energy or Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia’s anything-but-non-polluting power? The Republican National Convention and its contributors will give us the answer.
Without the GOP campaign ads, I would not have known how stupid the founding fathers were. Bill of Rights, Amendment VI: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” The GOP let me know that it was immoral for lawyers to defend people they don’t like.
The Truth might set you free, but it won’t win an election for you.
I do not listen to members of a political party who support the destruction of American Democracy. The MAGA Republicans are the domestic enemy.
Hank Shiver
Mission
Hecklers
criticized
A gubernatorial candidate came to the Valley, and the GOP leaders thought it best to heckle him. How rude. A governor has come to the Valley, and while many disagree with his policies, with his laughter at having the grid refurbished, with his seeming lack of empathy for his fellow human beings legally seeking asylum, with his choice of sticking with an attorney general who has been formerly indicted on felony charges, and yes, for the inane commercials he has endorsed where he is called “Tio Greg,” no one heckled him or laughed at him. He may have been ignored, he may have had a low turnout at his meetings — oh, wait, those were “closed” meetings, probably because there would have been a low turnout.
You know, it was Gov. Ann Richards, a Democrat, who encouraged the Young Republicans long ago to rise to the occasion and make Texas a two-party state. It is too bad the GOP here has no manners.
Que verguenza!
Martha Talamas
McAllen
