Charlottesville and beyond

Is nation losing soul under Trump?

Recently I’ve seen opinions supporting Donald Trump on the grounds that the stock market is up, along with lame excuses about how he’s new at his job and his comments about Charlottesville should be forgiven. I ask this question: what does it profit our nation to gain the whole world’s economy and lose our own soul?

When the president of the United States describes those who rail against Jews and citizens of color as “very fine people,” I double down on declaring that this man is not my president. He should be removed from public display along with the other monuments to the worst elements in our national character.

Recently the descendants of Roger B. Taney, the Supreme Court justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision that legitimized slavery in 1857, apologized to the descendants of Dred Scott for the suffering and death of millions of Americans due in part to Taney’s moral blindness. I wonder if the day will come when the descendants of Ivanka and Barron Trump will feel obliged to issue a similar apology to the American people for their ancestor’s depravity. —Michael Merchant, Kalispell

Is global left working to divide U.S.?

Have you readers snapped to the national Sea Change yet? It’s no longer the incessant accusations of Trump administration collusion with Russia-Russia-Russia. That is a dead horse that concerned a minority of Americans. The long-sought evidence of collusion is recently, clearly and validly pointing the Ol’ Collusion Cannon to the Obama administration and Democrats. Oh dear, we can’t have that! So the Malstream Media shift is now to Race-Race-Race, a much more volatile strategy to disembowel our country.

Decades of vigorously promoting multiculturalism, diversity and separatism has set the stage for an explosion of identity politics pitting one culture against another, one ethnicity against another, left against right, black against white, etc. Add the fuel of radical Islamic terrorism into the mix that has been politically protected and tolerated for decades, and why wouldn’t other sectors of our country follow suit with apparently acceptable levels of violence, assured by local law enforcement standing down?

The game is to forever bring down that nefarious U.S. Constitution put together by our Founders, the evil white slave owners that had the audacity to promote freedom and individual liberty, responsibility and self-reliance. What were they thinking?

Elitism, communalism, communism, and one-global mindset is the game. No military coup is necessary when Americans can be goaded into hating and harming each other. The United States must cease to exist, and is now being taken down by our own countrymen who nary would identify themselves as Americans unless there’s a hyphenation in front of this dastardly word.

There were no clean hands with any component of the Charlottesville horror. But that event lit an intended fuse across this country. Does anyone really think that the logistics, plans and outcome of that event were just coincidental? I surely don’t. It was a two-fer: 1) a hopeful final blow to the Trump presidency (because North Korea’s threats were not); and 2) beginning of the end of the United States as we once knew it.

We are all Americans in desperate need of uniting, but will we? —Elaine Willman, Ronan

Hate vs. hate

There is a song from the Sixties sung by Peter, Paul and Mary, titled “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” It was a protest song back then against war. The main theme was “when will they ever learn?” That question is even more relevant today than ever. We don’t learn. We are still at war today, in several places around the world, but the real war is here amongst ourselves.

It is a war to determine if our country will survive. It will not survive, if everything we do is born out of hate. Hate can only destroy. Nothing lasting is or ever will be built on a foundation of hate. Left or right, we must be Americans first! We must be able to disagree, but work together for the benefit of us all. The rhetoric in this country has gotten so virulent that it leaves no path to mutual respect, let alone LOVE.

The violence and hatred must stop! All of our leaders must remember how to act out of love and joy, working together for this country in which we are all blessed to wake up each morning. Is it perfect? Of course not! Will violence and hatred make it better? NEVER!

I call on all of our leaders — political, spiritual and family — to step back, take a deep breath, evaluate where we are as one people. Please help move us forward in LOVE. —Jay Trepanier, Kalispell

An outlier from the South who can teach us all

While our nation grapples with the dismantling of statues to the confederacy, I frequently hear the argument that such destroys and distorts “our” history. If that was truly the case, one has to ask why there isn’t a single statue to one of the bravest and smartest commanders who served under Robert E. Lee?

James Longstreet was one of the finest generals of the South and served as Lee’s principal subordinate. He was affectionally referred to as “Old War Horse” by Lee as he served as a corps commander for most of the battles waged by the Army of Northern Virginia.

Some maintain that Longstreet “was the finest corps commander in the Army of Northern Virginia; in fact, he was arguably the best corps commander in the conflict on either side.”

Yet while there are literally hundreds of statues to confederacy generals and commanders throughout the South, I believe there is only one of James Longstreet, at Gettysburg of all places.

The simple answer is while Longstreet fought for one of the worst causes in our nation’s history, he changed after the Civil War. Unlike the vast, vast number of his fellow generals and fellow Southerners, he came to embrace and support the reunification of the South and North.

Longstreet was the rare Southerner to accept the Confederacy defeat while urging Southerners to support efforts to rebuild their region on the basis of greater racial equality.

Perhaps his greatest sin to the South was his subsequent command of a biracial Louisiana militia in the 1870s that fought against a white supremacist uprising in New Orleans. It didn’t help when he joined Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party.

In contrast, the vast majority of former Southern commanders and soldiers maintained their efforts were the “Lost Cause of the Confederacy.” This “Lost Cause” describes the Civil War as a heroic effort to maintain the Southern way of life while denying the role of slavery.

It was this mentality that was responsible for the placement of Confederacy statues throughout the South. It served as the beginnings of the KKK, Jim Crow laws and the hundreds, if not thousands, of lynchings that continued well into the the 1960s until the enactment of the Civil Rights Act.

In contrast, James Longstreet’s life after the Civil War shows us America’s amazing “saving grace.” James Longstreet shows us that we can learn from our mistakes and to advance the betterment of our Union — the United States of America. —Tom Muri, Whitefish

Hypocrisy rules in America

Again, with the incident in Virginia, President Trump has shown how much he does not understand how the present political and social conscience operates. He does not seem to understand that when an event of an emotional nature occurs, then reason and logic are no longer appropriate.

What is important is to be as hypocritical about the event as possible, and criticize anyone who might be trying to use reason and logic in their interpretation of the circumstances surrounding the event! Emotion gives us the right to ignore and dismiss facts — it puts us on a higher “correctness” level so we can pontificate about the righteousness of our position and the wrongness of anyone who might suggest we should try and understand that emotional events call for a calm, reasoned understanding of all sides of the issue.

How dare the president attempt to take away my emotional feelings. I am an emotional person — if I choose to be a hypocrite, that is my decision. —Dale B. Heldstab, Columbia Falls

Develop proper guidelines for monuments

Rather than taking sides in the tragic events in Charlottesville, try developing guidelines for erecting monuments in public place.

Does the monument:

—Represent the culture of the area?

—Reflect a negative minority view or a personal bias?

—Reflect a difficult time in history with a positive outcome?

—Have clearance from area authorities?

—Cause us to consider the personal responsibilities of citizenship?

Add your own, dispute the above, but do something other than take sides in the controversy surrounding public monuments. During the years of the Civil War, 1861-1865, Montana was populated by gold-seekers, homesteaders, vigilantes, etc. It became a territory in 1864. Certainly the Civil War threw new light on the responsibilities of citizenship, and Montana monuments should reflect that.

Thanks to the Helena City Commission for their appraisal of the relevancy of a Confederate memorial in Montana, and its subsequent removal. —Shirley Anderson, Kalispell

Enough blame to go around

While I completely disagree with the views and ideology of the neo-Nazi and white supremacist movement, I defend their rights to freedom of speech and assembly as given to all American citizens by the Constitution of the United States.

If they had all of the permits and permissions needed to hold a legal assembly, then no one, how ever strongly they disagree, had the right to try to stop them. The riot in Charlottesville should never have happened.

The responsibility for what happened lies at the feet of ALL whom where there. All sides showed very aggressive behavior, and the anti-rally protesters displayed the same intolerance and hatred that they were protesting against.

As citizens of this country, we are all held to the high standards laid out by the Constitution. This includes allowing anyone the right to assembly and freedom of speech, even if we disagree with them or their ideology.

There are certainly other ways to fight this movement, but disregarding the very foundations that this country is built on can not and must not be one of them. —Ed Marks, Kalispell