Letters on refugees, Democrats’ legacy, calling GOP to account

Meanness of spirit a clear, present danger

A wave of terror rolls across the world like a tsunami. Responding voices are increasingly shrill and hysterical. An Eagle headline reads, “Kansas won’t help Syrian refugees relocate here amid terrorism fear” (Nov. 17 Eagle). I am not reassured, nor do I feel safer.

This community has been enriched by the many Lebanese and Syrian families living here. Brutality drives these families to flee their homeland on foot with children in their arms in search of welcoming words and a safe place to sleep.

I recall the times I have dipped into a great bowl of chicken and rice and heard the words: “There must be enough to feed the family.” And “family” means anyone who comes to eat. Breaking bread at Easter comes with this blessing: “May you always have bread on your table to share with those in need.”

I do not want any radical with a gun in our midst, regardless of where the person comes from. But the distrust and meanness of spirit that I hear and feel growing among us is a certain and present danger. This is a terror threat to each and every one of us, and it will demand a great deal of loving faith in one another and generosity of spirit to counteract it.

That much support?

We are struggling in Kansas. Gov. Sam Brownback has the lowest approval rating of any governor in the United States – at 26 percent (Nov. 22 Now Consider This). We are struggling to find that 26 percent.

Democrats’ legacy

Before the Civil War, Northern states were non-slave-owner majority Republicans and Southern states were slave-owner majority Democrats. Slave-owning Democrats fought for and were the Confederacy. President Lincoln was killed by a Democrat.

After the war, the majority Democratic South put in place Jim Crow laws and poll taxes and segregated schools, public water fountains, restrooms, public transportation and restaurants. There were lynchings by the Ku Klux Klan. Long-serving West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, a former KKK member, was revered by his Democratic colleagues. The overwhelming majority Southern Democrats did these things to continue enslaving black people.

I grew up in the South in the 1940s and ’50s. The elected officials were overwhelming majority Democrats. Republicans had to help Democratic President Lyndon Johnson pass the civil rights law.

If the legacy of the Confederacy is one of racism and shame (Nov. 15 Letters to the Editor), then the Democrat Party’s legacy should be one of racism and shame for the reasons I’ve listed.

Call GOP to account

If there were a court to judge high crimes against democracy, the American people might be able to call the Republican Party to account for the following:

▪  The GOP has prostituted itself to the oil and gas industry by denying the contribution of the extraction and burning of fossil fuels to global warming. The GOP’s aggressive campaign of lies has ultimately promoted public distrust of science.

▪  The GOP preaches a dogma of hate and paranoia. Republicans warn credulous people to be afraid of immigrants, of women having control over their sexuality, of people who pray in a different fashion, of helping the poor or disabled, of communal action of any kind.

▪  The GOP deliberately cultivates the inability to rule. Republicans say “no” to negotiation of ideas, and they seek office so that they can destroy democratic government and its protections.

Our only court of last resort is the vote. Not surprisingly, the present Republican Party, with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach leading the way, is doing all in its power to deny the vote to the poor, the elderly, the disabled, the disaffected and the poorly educated.

Yet we must believe that the current configuration of the GOP is on the losing side of history.

This story was originally published November 27, 2015 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Letters on refugees, Democrats’ legacy, calling GOP to account."