This is Viewpoints for Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017

America first

Charles Levesque and Sister Katie Norris and the others who devote their lives and careers to helping our homeless are to be admired. We have far too many of our own fellow American citizens who are homeless for many reasons, substance abuse, mental illness, and simple poverty. All of them should have top priority for getting assistance before we even think of allowing foreigners to come in and collect our tax dollars.

Unfortunately, there is far more money in the refugee resettlement industry than is to be made helping our own homeless. Oh sure, most involved mean well, but at the top, it is all about the money and less about actually helping. I’m sorry that conditions are so bad in other countries but we have our own problems to fix first before we spend taxpayer dollars bringing in people who seem to create the same mess here that they left behind. I call on President Trump and Congress to defund the refugee resettlement industry and use the money to help our own instead.

A few thoughts

Although I seem predisposed to disagree with Erick Erickson on most things, Erick certainly is correct on his position opposing casino gambling in Georgia. Numbers don’t lie and his assessment of the falloff in education revenue and small business income. With the wholesale increase in bankruptcies, the overall financial health of local communities, statewide, are impacted by casinos.

Mike Ganas is correct in anticipating that we will know nothing until the “Jack-in-the-box” Republican health-care plan actually pops up. Even those turning the crank have no clear, unified vision for the replacement legislation. True, we did not know the scope and specifics of the ACA, as so ineloquently stated by Nancy Pelosi, but we do now. The benefits and flaws are visible and portions of the act are viable. Let’s just fix it.

Finally, I was saddened to see Douglas Fingles letter criticizing Dr. Cummings. Does Douglas not realize that the good doctor is superbly well educated, accomplished and renowned? Does he not recognize what a trailblazing pioneer of modern revisionist thought Dr. Cummings is? Why, he was using “Alternate Facts” long before Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer ever came along.

In this post-factual paradigm, Cummings, with his long experience shaping opinions, seems an obvious choice for the Trump administration’s Director of Mis-communication. Hey, Doc, expect a call from Rod Serling any time now. No, wait, like Frederick Douglass, he’s dead.

History has yet to speak

Perennial gadfly Frank Gadbois pretends to know what Lt. Col. Peter Christensen’s military record looks like. (letter, Feb. 9) i.e. “...worthless, pale blue training certificates” and “not a likely hero” with “no Purple Hearts on his license tags.” However, Gadbois never asserts he even knows or has met the gentleman, so his assessment is pure guess work and bogus, like most of his assertions in the letters he writes. If Christensen is the same person I worked with as Peter Christensen, an engineer, his contribution to national defense is exemplary. Moreover, people with worthless training records do not get promoted five times, up to Lt. Col. in any U.S. military organization. Up or out is the rule and many do not make it.

Gadbois’ last assertion, where he claims that Barack Hussein Obama will go down in history as one of America’s best is also premature. Wonder why Gadbois avoided mentioning the fact that Obama more than doubled the national debt from $9 trillion when he took office to $19 trillion when he left? If Obama was the best, why did the Democrats lose so many congressional seats in the last three elections and why did Hillary lose the last election with his support, saying each time, “my name’s not on the ballot, but my legacy is”? Well, his legacy lost, and America is now more deeply divided than anytime since the Civil War, despite Obama’s pledge to bring us together. That’s hardly a record to celebrate.

Religion and government

Someone once said that if fascism ever came to America it would come wrapped in the flag and carrying a Bible, so I am finding it quite distressing when I read “breathless” posts on the Internet about how wonderful it is to have so many Christians in The Donald’s cabinet. The implication is that the “Obama crowd” was not Christian. Who knows what they could have been? Muslims? Hindus? Devil worshipers? Lizard men? Origamist?

I suggest these enthusiasts consider the following:

Not everyone who claims to be a Christian acts in a Christ-like manner. There are plenty of CINO’s (Christian In Name Only) and “bumper sticker” (Honk If You Love Jesus) Christians out there. Just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of the Christian is in the doing. If you doubt this look up what Jesus said about the matter (Matthew 25: 35-36).

And lets look back to the last highly publicized “Christians in the White House” — George W’s crowd. They even had some sort of office of religion, and they had promised the religious right many things — things that never happened. What they (and we) got was a government that dropped the ball on 9/11/, two wars fought on credit cards and topped off with a major recession.

And this wonderful collection of current Christian leadership is lead by the greatest Christian of them all, a man whose honesty and morality is beyond question (or perhaps beyond belief.)

Careful

In his Feb. 8 letter titled “The final word,” writer Chuck Fore correctly quotes Deuteronomy 22:5, which in the New American Bible reads as “A woman shall not wear an article proper to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s dress; for anyone who does such things is an abomination to the Lord, your God.”

I don’t pretend to know what God thinks about a transgender lifestyle and cross dressing, but I do know that God loves all of his people. Fore should be cautious about a literal interpretation of Holy Scripture. Does he “put twisted cords on the four corners of the cloak that you wrap around you “or avoid thecloth of two different kinds of thread, wool and linen, woven together” as mandated later in the same chapter?

This story was originally published February 15, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017."