This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015
Talk about Chicago
After the shootings in Charleston, South Carolina and Roseburg, Oregon, President Obama, according to media reports, made impassioned pleas for stricter controls and background checks on gun buyers. He has stated the issue needs to be politicized. Now after Obama has visited Roseburg, the Associated Press reports that he is muting his message on gun control because Oregon is a pro-gun area. Why? Shouldn’t his message be the same?
In that regard, The New York Times has reported that during September 2015, there were 57 homicides by guns plus 351 shot and wounded in Chicago. I don’t recall any reports of impassioned pleas from the president in any media. Again, I have to ask why? Is it because the mayor of Chicago is a friend and supporter? In fact I don’t recall any hullabaloo about the numbers in Chicago from anyone. Reports in the press usually read “Ho hum, what’s new. Another bunch of people killed and wounded,” usually with numbers in double digits. It seems that if the president is that concerned about gun violence he would talking about Chicago every week.
— Bert Peters
Warner Robins
Nothing to do with slavery
Dr. Claud Anderson is spreading his message in central Georgia that “Black people are considered a permanent under-class of society after suffering through slavery, Jim Crow laws and another 50 years of benign neglect and need to be more self-sufficient, independent and a competitive group in this nation.”
Years ago, when I first moved to central Georgia, I used to correspond with Charles Richardson regarding his Telegraph columns focusing on black empowerment and increased success as a society. I challenged him to actually call it like it is. He never would, so I quit trying. But here is the message I suggested that he focus on: All societal studies show that the single common characteristic of crime, poverty and poor education is illegitimacy. The black community leads that in category by staggering amounts, currently over a 75 percent illegitimate birth rate. This has nothing to do with what happened 150 years ago, nor what Jim Crow laws set out to do. It does have to do with neglect, though. That neglect is generational, and it certainly isn’t benign.
A society based on fathers who are nothing more than absentee sperm donors will never become a competitive group. Their neglect will guarantee another generation that will be part of the permanent underclass. Sadly, tax and welfare laws do nothing to discourage this destiny but in fact promote it.
To share that message to the community, I recommended, without success, that Richardson republish the old wise poem we grew up with before single motherhood and permanent poverty became a way of life. That poem included the lines, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes mommy with a baby carriage.” That’s the way it used to work. For those black women who are part of that 75 percent today, do they want their children to be better off than they are? What are they willing to sacrifice for their betterment?
When that man comes around next time for his conjugal visit, just ask, “Where’s the ring?” It won’t guarantee instant success, but eventually, future generations will be better off than where they are now. After all, “The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands.” (Proverbs 14:1) You don’t need Dr. Anderson to tell them that. It’s their call.
— Dan Topolewski
Kathleen
Bible changes
Too many people and scholars wish to argue about the Bible. Every viewpoint emitted from the lips of the clergy or others is not always understood. Yes, it is a holy book, but it is a book intended to be a guide to life for people, not an actual historical record. God may have passed the words on to man but man makes mistakes in translation. After all, that book has been copied into every language on Earth. Every several hundred years or less our language changes. Read a Bible that is several hundred years old, not only do the words change but the letters do also. The Bible is rewritten every 10 years or so just so we can understand the words. Dr. Bill Cummings is right on the words. He understands the true meaning of the Bible. Do not be afraid of his ideas and thoughts. That is why God gave us minds and free will. As long as you reach out a hand with love, God will bless you.
— Brian T. Reid Sr.
Gray
Two views
Dr. Bill Cummings and I, it seems, subscribe to two very different versions of Christianity. His version is skeptical of all of the faith’s exclusive doctrinal claims: the trinitarian claim that Jesus is “very God of very God,” and creator of “time and space and energy”; that he was conceived of the Holy Spirit in a supernatural process; that he rose, bodily, from the dead, three days after willingly laying down his life in payment of a debt (ours). That only through the acceptance of that payment, which is a gift, can we be justified with God.
What remains is the doctrine that “Jesus was a pretty cool guy; and despite his coming to an untimely end, maybe we should pay attention to some of the things he supposedly said and that we agree with.” On that rather meager point, he and I agree. But as someone who once ascribed to it, I fail to see how it has any but the most subjective value. There has never been any shortage of “good advice.” And it has always, for the most part, been ignored, to judge from the contents of this very newspaper.
If Jesus was merely a ragtag Jewish rabbi — one more dispenser of such advice, which amounts to a credo of “be nice” — it is opaque to me as to why anyone would be preoccupied with him, to the point of writing regular opinion columns. If, on the other hand, he is the manifestation of God, the eternal “Word” by whom “all things were made” (John ch. 1), and by whom we can enter in his eternal mode of existence — not someday, but at this moment — then it is opaque to me how one cannot be preoccupied with him.
Two diametrically different, one might say “opposed” views. “Choose ye this day!”
— W. Wade Stooksberry II
Macon
Waiting period
Until I read Arthur Brook’s letter in Saturday’s Telegraph, I failed to realize the connection between DVDs and mass shootings. I would suggest that DVDs, like guns, are only dangerous in the wrong hands. Rather than boycotting DVD filth, I propose background checks and a three-day cooling off period before a store can allow individuals to rent offensive, dangerous DVDs.
— Neal Snyder
Warner Robins
This story was originally published October 12, 2015 at 9:16 PM.