To the Editor:
I am alarmed that John Shaw, of Mitchell, finds it acceptable to spew lies and hatred (see letter to the editor, Nov. 29. I am more alarmed that The Daily Republic abdicates its journalistic responsibility and prints Shaw's bigoted fabrications.
Shaw glosses his warmed-over Hitlerian screed against Muslims and LGBT citizens with a smattering of unsupported statistics. He makes the laughable claim that America is ruled by the "Muslim Islamic and sodomite cultures." I defy anyone to prove that the small percentage of Americans practicing Islam and the small percentage of Americans practicing homosexuality have more control over this country than the 5 percent who control more than half of the nation's wealth (see http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html ).
As part of his rant, Shaw repeats the persistent and pernicious lie that President Barack Obama is a Muslim. First, the proper moral response to any American saying of a fellow American, "He's a Muslim," should be, "And so what if he is?"
Second, the proper factual response to Shaw's assertion should be to repeat the well-documented fact that President Obama is a Christian (see
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http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/aug/26/18-percen... ).
Shaw closes with a Bible quote to prove his own superior piety, but how can we trust Shaw's apparent claim to be Christian any more than he takes the copious evidence that Barack Hussein Obama is Christian? John Shaw is no Christian. He's just some malcontent who a generation ago would have been Archie Bunkering about Negroes and Jews running everything. Unable to resort to such slurs in 2014, Shaw scapes other goats.
I wish I could ignore Shaw's screed and let it fade away. Ignorance and hatred will always curse our fallible race. That is all the more reason to whack such vile attitudes every time they surface, to keep them from building and doing more harm. Mitchell editors, if you feel compelled to print Shaw's ignorance and hatred, you should at least feel compelled to help debunk his lies.
Cory Allen Heidelberger
Madison
