I had to read Al Fonzi’s piece (“A republic in peril,” April 22) twice to ensure that I had not missed something. Unfortunately, I hadn’t. It appears to me that Al spends a lot of time listening to Fox News. I prefer to watch “NewsMix” with its four channels, including Fox News, to hear the fringe opinions of the left and the right, realizing that the “truth” is somewhere in between.
Al says that as a boy he loved America for its exceptional goodness, and catalogs the reasons why. Obviously, Al’s youth was not spent on an Indian reservation among the impoverished descendants of America’s genocidal ethnic cleansing campaigns of the 19th century, or in a Black community suppressed by Jim Crow’s “law and order” police by day and terrorized by the KKK at night.
Am I safe in assuming, Al, that you or your classmates were not beaten or otherwise punished in school for “not speaking English” as were my German-American grandfather, Swedish-American grandmother, and my Mexican-American in-laws?
Yes, there was a time when America was envied by most people of the world. But then America squandered that goodwill with its endless wars against Third World nations and its gluttonous consumption of our planet’s limited resources at the expense of other peoples and nations.
Like Al, I also served in the U.S. Army, but for only 34 years. During intermittent foreign deployments I witnessed firsthand the evaporation of America’s good standing among other nations, and often found myself trying to defend my country’s often ill-advised, high-handed, shortsighted approaches to foreign policy.
The greatest threat to our republic is not demands by non-whites and progressives to end the racial discrimination imbedded within our country’s institutions. Rather, the greatest threat facing America today is an old one that seems to rear its ugly head every so many decades. That threat is the open resistance to the fulfillment of our nation’s highest ideals by white “exceptionalism.” As we all witnessed on Jan. 6, 2021, a mob of these “exceptional” people had so little regard for our Constitution and the “rule of law” that they felt righteously empowered to conduct an armed insurrection and attack the people’s house. It was sickening to learn that so many of them were my fellow veterans who should have known better. Treasonous!
Al asked, “Whatever happened to being nonjudgmental and valuing character over superficial differences?” OK, Al, I give up, when was that the case? America has always been a work in progress. “All [white] men are created equal” (1776) now includes men who are not white (1870) and women (1920). Unfortunately, since the 1980s, much of our country’s progress “to a more perfect Union” has been eroded by those who prefer to preserve their own privilege, power, and wealth. These “exceptional” people refuse to recognize that the ultimate result of their continued systemic oppression is the ruin of us all.
Stephen H. Siemsen
CW3, U.S. Army (retired)
Orcutt
This article appears in Best of SLO County 2021.
Al Fonzi is correct. That is all.
Small note for factual presentations;
No one other than the police at the January 6th event was found to be armed. One person was shot; an unarmed woman by a plainclothes police officer (whose name has been withheld by the DoJ). So calling it an “armed insurrection” is somewhat absurd. More absurd is the concept that the riot was a carefully planned attack to overwhelm the US government. If someone wanted to do that, they would have been “armed” to the teeth.
It was a disgusting riot. But calling it an “armed insurrection” is preposterous.
34 years. Possibly a three [3] war veteran?
My deceased spouse enlisted in the Navy in 1941 and continued to serve on active duty during Korea and Vietnam. He was a Founder of the “All3Wars” organization made up of others who began their service in WWII serving through the other two “police actions.
A more interesting take on America’s war could not be found today. Unfortunately, those WWII vets are dying off in ever fewer numbers as time goes by. Attempts to expand the 3Wars to veterans of more recent “wars’ has proven unsuccessful.
Many of the January 6 insurrectionists were armed with weapons. But we can thank the strict common sense gun laws in Washington DC for The minimal number of firearms that were part of that insurrectionist weaponry. Those laws saved untold numbers of lives and allowed for defense of the capitol with minimal bloodshed. And it is well documented that much of the insurrection was pre-planned. Some of the insurrectionists themselves have admitted this
I call attention to “Clovis Dad’s” white washing of the white nationalist insurrection to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Please, this assault was more than a “disgusting riot.”
Already the GOP’s white nationalists and one-party state promoters are “bleaching out” the violent realities of this anti-democratic insurrection. The Trumpers as ordered by the POTUS wanted to install their losing authoritarian candidate despite his defeat by more than 7 million votes and the Electoral College loss.
Remember the bomber who planted two explosive devices at Democratic AND Republican offices in Washington, DC? The so-called “unarmed woman” – A GOP Q-Anon-er, had decked herself out for a fight and persisted in smashing windows and doors of the peoples’s house with her fellow attackers. Capital security repeatedly demanded the insurrectionists cease their attack. The officer was right to shoot her and other security would’ve been in their right to fire upon the violent white nationalist insurrectionists and drive the traitors from the premises.
Remember, the white nationalist right and their christo-fascist allies are continuing to arm and train for terrorist acts and more assaults on our democracy, just as they as they did in Michigan in 2020.
For a reminder of the white nationalist Trumper violence against our democracy, please view this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wisHg04b_S….
For a reminder of the white nationalist Trumper violence against our democracy, please view this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wisHg04b_S8.
The only path to peace is through common sense gun ownership. It makes sense to protect yourself and your family, does it not? This is a violent world full of nasty people in many instances (see A town daily news article about man arrested Tues night at 9400 El Camino Real). None of those weapons he was carrying were acquired legally. Your so called “common sense” gun laws take away my guns because I follow the law and register them and am not allowed to walk about in public with them to protect my family and self. Common sense tells us that violent criminals like the one arrested aren’t following the laws and present a clear danger to the public. With the police being “defunded” in many areas, common sense tells any rational person that you must arm yourself and your capable family members to assure their safety in such a world. It is morally retarded to dictate to the American people who can defend their own lives and who cannot, based on the opinions of folks unknowledgeable and untrained in firearm use and safety. This should be taught to all citizens of this country at a responsible age in schools. The left will teach “alternative” lifestyles over life preserving basic skills such as safe, responsible firearm use and conduct.
Gordon and rightword2…go back to the SHIT HOLE country that you came from!!!
https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-violenc…
Is there anyone reading this who does not have all the firearms they need?
I support the Second Amendment. Fact is, if someone brings a gun into a home it greatly increases the chance that someone living in that home will be shot. No gun in a home, the less chance anyone living in that home will be shot or assaulted. The number of people in the United States who are shot by a family member or by themselves its astounding. People dont usually think about that but its really just common sense.
There are so many guns in America that no government could ever possibly take them all away or would ever likely try to. We live in a gun culture and thats why so many people are shot. More than 100 people every single day of the year. Most of us think guns are really cool and we dont really mind too much when people are shot as long as they are people we dont know. We watch TV shows and movies and play games filled with guns and so we want to have guns too. We think they make the world a safer place like for the people on TV. We dont really care that owning a gun makes it much more likely we or One of our family members will be shot. People get shot all the time. Thats just the way it is. This is the United States after all. Pretty much everyone who wants a gun gets a gun. Some people say that makes us all safer. That may be, but it also means more of us get shot each year. Thousands and thousands die. In the United States, most people are cool with that.
YES. ME. If you are selling your guns Rightword, we can do the transfer legally at many places here. We follow the rules and regs because we are law abiding people. We live in a soft culture which is why lying, misleading turds like you can spread your communist bullshit liberally in our state. We live in a uneducated society which is the fault of people that don’t learn, or mis-prioritize knowledge in favor of sexual deviance and drug euphoria. Well that gives you mush-minds to psycho-screw with liberal crap in droves, doesn’t it? Unfortunately for liberals, the young folks are shunning their politics and messaging completely. Good for our country that we will be in good hands. Young people fill the churches on Sunday, young people are amply evident at charitable drives that I volunteer at. Young people will fulfill the promise of our country and pass it to the next.
As Jesus said: “love thy neighbor”. Jesus used to wash the feet of the homeless. His life was meant to be a lesson for us all.
If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns!
Blaming guns for violence is like blaming spoons for fat people, the guns is no better or worse than the person holding it. Since the US Constitution guarantees the right of individual people to bare arms, the whacky liberal attempt at over-the-top gun laws will inevitably fail.
Guns don’t hurt people, it’s the person holding the gun who hurts people.
I support the Second Amendment and don’t believe it is possible to ever take all the guns away from Americans.
One thing is for sure: if you want to increase the chances of someone in your family being shot, bring a gun into your home.
I don’t hear many people blaming guns for killing people. It’s the people who use the guns that kill people. I think most people understand that. If less people use guns to shoot people, less people will be killed.
It’s common sense. Guns don’t kill people. People who own or steal or borrow guns kill people.
If guns are outlawed, police officers will still shoot unarmed people.
Now we can all see how our whacky liberal ‘friend’, Wrongword, views our brave men and women in blue, and it is typical of the Democrats to embrace criminals over law enforcement, shame on them.
Just tonight, we have seen two SLO police officers shot in the line of duty, and local BLM imbeciles are probably celebrating the criminal who inflicted this harm, that is why normal working class people have rejected the corrupt Democrat Party. Gavin Newson, Nancy Pelosi, Heidi Harmon and Salud Carbajal ALL ought to be ashamed of their anti-police stance, history will show them to be scoundrels who cannot be trusted to hold public office.
Pray for the health and safety of our local police force, and reject radical BLM slime ball politics.
Now more than ever Paso Robles police chief Ty Lewis deserves widespread community support for upholding the law and his oath of office.
Steve Edwards public attack of Ty Lewis on the same day a local police officer was killed in the line of duty was despicable. Steve Edwards support for killing unarmed black men and women is equally despicable. White Supremacist attitudes and actions have no place in San Luis Obispo County. Thank God for Ty Lewis, a courageous man who is trying to foster widespread mutual respect among law-enforcement and the people law-enforcement serves. Promoting understanding, unity and love in the community is more important now than ever.
Stephen H. Siemsen you sound like a good leader. Thank you for your thoughtful and pointed response to “The Fonz.”