Don’t sit on the fence

One of the nicer benefits this space affords me is additional mail to read. It’s not the volume that constantly surprises me but the content.

As you’d expect, many readers agree with the ideas and opinions expressed here. Many disagree. Then there are the loonies who feel they can spew personal epithets and insults to someone they’ve never met. These are the ones who, of course, don’t have the huevos to include a name. Still, I don’t see as many of these sorts since I configured my inbox to delete anything that contains certain terms.

If, however, you had (or have) occasion to send me a letter that falls into one of the two aforementioned categories, thank you. Assuming you didn’t insult my parental lineage, I probably got around to reading it.

(Note: If you wish any letter to be considered for publication, you also need to send a copy to renoletters@newsreview.com.)

I used to respond directly to readers who sent mail, but this often was interpreted as an invitation to enter into debate. While I like a good debate, I don’t have the time to conduct one with everyone who contacts me. Therefore, please don’t take my non-response as an indication of non-interest.

On occasion, I’m taken to task by both liberal and moderate readers who claim I am simply a partisan hack. One person actually threatened to boycott the entire RN&R because of a column—which seemed rather childish to me.

If your sensibilities are so delicate that they can’t withstand some challenge here, you can always opt not to read Right Hook, although I’m not quite sure what this says about liberals’ claims of being open-minded and tolerant.

While it’s true that your host’s favorite hobby is ripping on liberals, Democrats, progressives or whatever alias they are hiding behind these days, it is perhaps time I became more inclusive. (Note: If you’re a moderate, you may wish to buckle up about now.)

First, let’s recognize that middle-of-the-road people—also known as a moderates or independents—are not any more enlightened than the rest of us. We right-thinkers actually understand our left-leaning friends, and they us. We just happen to whole-heartedly disagree on just about everything.

While Democrats re-tool their message to further obfuscate what they really believe, you may wish to note that you will never see a conservative run from the label of “conservative” or “capitalist"—never.

So is it too hard to pick a side?

Let’s see. You can identify with people who won’t condemn or even discourage things like promiscuity, divorce, illegitimacy and homosexuality, but will condemn fur coats, red meat, excessive consumption, and land development.

Or you can choose to identify yourself with people who think the Ten Commandments are a pretty good way to model your life—at least in theory if not in actual practice. That would be the “extremists” that the New York Times has the gall to label the “religious right.”

If you require incontrovertible proof that liberalism is a failed ideology, consider this: In the early 1980s HIV/AIDS was a new disease confined mostly to homosexual men and intravenous drug users.

The agenda advanced was that “safe sex” was the answer to casual sex.

Yet even with their worship of the almighty condom, the non-judgmental, do-what-feels-good crowd advocated HIV/AIDS right smack into a national pandemic.

Imagine the difference had the agenda advanced been a conservative one.