Sun, Dec 28, 2014 ●
BathHarpswellTopshamBrunswickCumberlandNorth YarmouthFalmouthFreeportPortlandCape ElizabethScarboroughSouth PortlandChebeague IslandYarmouth

Letter: Shame on Beem, newspaper


Letter: Shame on Beem, newspaper


I read Mr. Beem’s opinions shaking my head and usually he’s trying to convince the readers (more likely himself) that he’s a thoughtful, gentle, church-going, open-minded, intelligent columnist. But this piece dispels that characterization.

I won’t begin to list all the demeaning adjectives and name-calling in his rant, but the main gist is Tea Partiers are immoral, stupid, selfish, backsliding, and in the same ranks as segregationists, homophobes and chauvinists. He left out Nazis.

Mr. Beem judged millions of people to be immoral. He dismisses and demeans them in the hope that they will have no voice to address their government. His hatred for them is palpable. As a Christian he knows that is a serious conflict with his personal faith. I think he knows that many of the issues that Tea Partiers stand for (less federal power, lower government spending) are valid, yet he chooses to ignore them and attack a cartoon-version of a Tea Partier, which to him looks like an ignorant redneck.

Two questions for Mr. Beem: Why are you intolerant of a group of people who have no power, when your party controls all federal and state government power. And, as someone who in his youth probably believed the motto “question authority,” when did you put your full faith in the fairness and effectiveness of the federal government?

Craig Barnes