Words attributed to letter writer were not used

I enjoy reading letters selected by the editor for printing in the Independent Record. Not all letters submitted are printed. Some letters contain factual errors which should be corrected. As the letter writer mentioned in Mr. Clothier’s most recent letter (the one who actually read his first letter), I must state that nowhere in my response to his first letter did I mention, as he put it, “every thing from athletes foot to dandruff and everything in between was the fault of liberal foolishness.”

I guess Mr. Clothier was attempting to be humorous, as well as condescending, in his response to my letter. It is unfortunate that he chose to attribute words to me that were never written or even implied. Sometimes attempts at humor are at best misguided. My letter stated facts, examples of how “idealistic progressives” in the present have in fact damaged our country, maybe irrevocably.

But I do appreciate his reference, in his final sentence, to “the ash heap of history.” He may not realize that the quoted words come from a speech to the British House of Commons, June 8, 1982, by President Ronald Reagan (a conservative, not an idealistic progressive). The more accurate, fuller, quote is, “freedom and democracy will leave Marxism and Leninism on the ash heap of history.”

Marx and Lenin were “idealistic progressives” in their own right. History has recorded how they affected their world and now ours. I prefer Reagan’s conservative ideology, much of which President Trump is trying to reinvigorate, to the consternation of the liberal left, and of the establishment right as well. You might go so far as to say outright resistance, denial, and hatred, by both. Such is the world left to us by the idealistic progressive president Obama in the past eight years. That was the point being made in my first letter responding to Mr. Clothier.

“Freedom and democracy,” ideals being attacked relentlessly from many sides and from many countries. Marx and Lenin promoted socialism, as does the “idealistic progressive” movement of recent history (for example, socialized medicine, a.k.a. Obamacare). America was founded on, and is a lonely bastion of, capitalism. There is no freedom or democracy in socialism. I wish today’s progressives understood that. Sadly, they seem not capable of it. Our best hope is to reject progressives and embrace conservatism. Only then can we truly be free.

Editors note: This will be the final installment of this Clothier/Pierce discussion in the Thermopolis Independent Record. Both parties were able to voice their opinion twice in recent editions of the TIR.