Letter: Party affiliation polarizing our country

Victoria West
St. Augustine
Published Sunday, April 24, 2005

Editor: Republicans and Democrats what are we doing? Are we not all Americans first? The sarcasms are getting worse by the week. We are defining who we are by political affiliation.

If someone takes offense to the sarcastic, slanderous, venom and speaks out against it, the rebuttal is always "stop whining", President Bush won and "mainstream America" has made its stand. What stand, exactly? Moral values?

While most of us sink closer to the poverty level, does greed and disrespect for God's creation and its people come under "moral values"?

The margin was a lot closer than people want to admit. Let's face it, most of us are not extreme left or right, but somewhere in the middle. Most people don't want to change presidents during a war. Most people want to give President Bush the opportunity to do something to correct the mess we're in because he put us there. Most people probably didn't want a foreigner as a first lady especially after her statement about a really nice American lady, Laura Bush.

And, if the Democratic party had a "statesman" who didn't resort to the same tactics as the opposing party, perhaps the outcome would have been different.

What has happened to humility, graciousness and manners? What happened to the idea of winning on one's own merit based on fact and not because you are craftier at pointing out how poorly qualified the other is?

Who is "mainstream America"? Republicans and the moral majority? Are you so wrapped up in moral issues that nothing else matters? Are we regressing back to the Salem witch hunts and McCarthyism? Do you remember why our forefathers left their countries and came here? They wanted freedom from religious tyranny, among other things. We still have the "choice" and "freedom" to worship God as we choose. The separation of church and state is necessary and history, and what is happening in the middle East, tells us why.

I remember when liberals were considered "tree-huggers" or a "radicals" because they believed in protecting nature and change, respectively. Is "mainstream America" saying that concerns about our environment, depletion of clean water and natural resources, pollution (clean air), education, low-income and standard-of-living decreasing, homelessness and healthcare/pharmaceutical costs skyrocketing, secondary to moral issues about gay marriage, abortion and anti-Christian activism? I haven't see any signs reading "Christians not wanted, go home" held by Democratic members or "liberals".

Where did this Democratic-anti-Christian (anti-Christ-like) mentality come from? Christ-like Republicans? When did lying about Watergate, the Contra, the S&L scandal, refusing to disclose information on secret energy meetings and the "shady" 2000 election become trivial compared to lying about a personal indiscretion and pushed to impeachment?

The word "evil", coming directly from biblical teachings, has been used by both parties for one reason and that is to instill "fear" and why we need to pick them to protect us. Fear of liberals and their radical, oops, "anti-Christian" ideas; fear of weapons of mass destruction, for which we are also guilty; fear of people, their customs, their sexual orientations and religious or non-religious beliefs; and fear of terrorists, which is the only rational fear to consider and they're supposedly highly religious.

And, in doing this, our political leaders have had the opportunity to make policies and take action against other nations under the guise of "protecting" us, when it is more about power and wealth. They keep us busy so we won't question the important issues they're failing to attend to.

I'm not anti-religious, but how about keeping it where it belongs; in your homes and hearts and not in the political arena? If you want smaller government, don't look to the government to make moral decisions for us. Like it or not, that infringes on our individual freedoms.

And shouldn't the terms "Pro-Life" and "Pro-Choice" be changed considering we are all, in reality, "Pro-Both"?

Ultimately what is important is that we remember that we are Americans first; a brotherhood that remembers what America has stood for in our past and, hopefully, will stand for in the future.