Your view: Battling labels

To my local Democrat neighbors, friends and citizens, I have stated before that most, but not all, local Democrats are exceptions and are not the target of my sometimes-abrasive rhetoric aimed at the National Democrat Party leaders and their co-conspirators. I understand that doesn't translate, and many, if not all of you are offended by my remarks. I apologize for the offense my impassioned rhetoric sometimes causes. But, I can not remain silent.

Republican and Democrat are just labels, like conservative, and liberal. "Labels are deceptive; it's what's inside that counts." I know that phrase can be turned around on me to make the counter point against me, but so be it. To make my point, consider Zell Miller. He is a Democrat. If Zell Miller's philosophy instead of a left wing Marxist philosophy were the philosophy of the leaders of the National Democrat Party, I would vote for a Zell Miller Democrat. Americans overwhelmingly just united behind Zell's ideology. An ideology that used to be taught in our history books; an ideology that our country was founded on; an ideology many of us yearn to conserve or preserve. When most of us hear the word "conservative" that is what comes to mind more urgently than fiscal policy. Fiscal conservatism is important, but if it means going into debt to preserve our American heritage, foundationally based on God given principles though fraught with misdeeds and faults by its practitioners, a majority of us will still vote to preserve the design of the original architect rather than have it replaced with an atheistic Marxist form of government.

Now I've exposed myself to the charge of McCarthyism again. So be it. If we are honest with one another and strip all the phony arguments and phony labels away, what this so-called culture war is being fought over is just that. Are we willing to continue as a nation that honors God as the ultimate authority and law giver, and still yearn for justice that follows the original intent of the author as the arbiter of right and wrong; or a nation that honors the State, controlled by elitists who want to refashion societal laws to personal taste, as the ultimate authority, law giver, and arbiter of right and wrong?

A desire for the former rather than the latter does not make me a religious bigot or a Nazi or a homophobe or hate filled or intolerant. It simply makes me a traditional American. A large majority of Americans and Christians understand that. And, even though for many years we were shamed into silence and shouted down being called McCarthyite or Nazi, we know in our hearts those charges are false. We must not refuse to take a stand out of fear of being ridiculed and smeared with false libelous labels.

As an example of nothing new under the sun, I'll leave you with these words from Mark Twain from the turn of the 20th Century: "It is the Christian who is responsible for the filling of our public offices with criminals, for the reason that they could prevent it if they chose to do it.

"They could prevent it without organizing a league, without framing a platform, without making any speeches or passing any resolutions - in a word, without concert of any kind. They could accomplish it by each individual resolving to vote for God at the polls - that is to say, vote for the candidate whom God would approve. Can a man imagine such a thing as Jesus being a Republican or a Democrat, and voting for a criminal or a blackguard (a thoroughly unprincipled person) merely because party loyalty required it? Then can we imagine that a man can improve upon his attitude in this matter, and by help of professional politicians invent a better policy?

"God has no politics but cleanliness and honesty, and it should be good enough for men. If the Christians of America could be persuaded to vote God and a clean ticket, it would bring about a moral revolution that would be incalculably beneficial. It would save the country - a country whose Christians have betrayed it and are destroying it." - Mark Twain, Colliers Magazine, September 2, 1905.

John McMillen,

Sikeston