To The Editor:
I would like to suggest to John McCloy, whose letter to The Valley Reporter was published on November 16 under the headline “Deplorable,” that the reason that so many Americans have fought and died in most of the wars since 1776 is so that they and succeeding generations might say what they feel without worrying about whether their neighbors or the central government liked it. We still have that right.
President Trump, who McCloy appears to admire, has been saying stupid, offensive and racist things about his fellow citizens for the past two years and about 30 percent of Americans have been encouraging him to do so. That is America; get used to it.
The American flag, flown upside-down, has been for years a recognized symbol for distress. If a cartoonist connects that symbol with the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima, I find it a potent suggestion for the dilemma our country finds itself in right now.
McCloy states that the Obama administration attacked our values and constitutional rights but gives no example of this. Trump and his pals spent his first year in office trying to destroy the country’s first reasonable health system, something which every great president since Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, has tried to establish for the country. They are now trying to pass a tax overhaul that gives all the benefits to the rich and screws the middle and lower class. That certainly runs against my values.
Charles Taplin
Warren
