RESPONSE TO RECENT OPINIONS, NEWS SPECIALS

As a subscriber and reader of the Bandera Bulletin Opinion page, I note that the Democratic column and the Republican response seemed to have gone away for a while but it appears to have returned, without the warning labels and it is now slipping off into the “news pages”. It’s been written that the best place to hide a lie is in between two truths. Recent examples would be editorials by Jodie Sinclair, Gary Moore and the “special” about Bill Sinclair, I have to ask, “Do award winning writers take courses in straining credulity in their schools of journalism? It’s a pity that Ms. J Sinclair who recites her Texas history well, missed the salient points. In contrast to the Texas Democratic caucus, the defenders of the Alamo STAYED to fight until they perished in defense of a cause. While I’m familiar with the left’s post-modernist penchant for re-defining the language; in what parallel universe can legislators who leave the state to avoid their duty be an analogy to the heroes of the Alamo? I can just imagine the additions to the Cenotaph on Alamo Plaza...with their limp arms and uncalloused hands, not on a musket, but a sixpack of Miller Lite. Not being included in a writers’ mutual admiration society, I tend to look for actual truth in what I read, counting it as an unfair shortening of my life-span not unlike prison, when I realize I have spent time deliberately twisted self-serving propaganda. The proposed HB 3 and SB 1 are nothing about “voter suppression”. Texas had more voter participation in the last election than ever before. Even the supposedly unbiased Texas Tribune, founded and run by Democrat activists, reports that Texas had 66% voter participation...highest in 28 years. It is extremely easy for legitimate voters to cast one vote each in Texas. The rules in place serve to convince most of us that it is still worth the trouble. Honest people with the gift of logic can all understand that the Democrat foot-stamping initiatives to keep polls open all night and to allow for mobile voting vans to roam about invites fraud by eliminating the ability for poll-watchers to scrutinize the proceedings or any other “trust but verify” system in which people can have confidence. These support ballot-harvesting in selected districts and avoiding others, which would obviously skew the vote. Anyone who criticizes gerrymandering, which to be honest, both parties have used, while supporting ballot-harvesting and pushing subsidized housing projects into conservative voting neighborhoods should check their hypocrisy. Someone who learned their Texas history in the 50’s should have learned “honesty is the best policy” and personal responsibility from her parents. A proper analogy would be to see elections as a contest, not unlike a game of baseball or football. There are rules to be followed and enforced by referees if the results are to have credibility and meaning. Destroying people’s confidence in the proceedings is by far the largest element in real, not imagined voter suppression. Passing measures that legitimately allow the counting of only legal votes is the responsible practice and should be practiced only by voters who understand their duty, excluding those who are simply takers. A healthy economy requires a mutual confidence that trading partners will deal honestly with one another. Furthermore, one of the primary foundations Western Civilization was built upon was the right to own one’s personal private property. When a large group of wards of the state are given the right to vote for confiscating the assets of others to support themselves, that way of life can be considered in its death throes. The NY Times has already begun lobbying for voting privileges for non-citizen illegal border jumpers.

It further strains a normal person’s reason to be asked to believe that a coup d’etat occurred on January 6. Having only taken up arms in support of this country; I can still easily understand that if I were ever to take part in a coup, I would certainly take along my own guns. It’s an historic coup indeed when the only people present who were armed were the Capitol police, some of whom invited the entry of the crowds into the halls of Congress and one of whom murdered an unarmed woman with a history of service to the country, accountability for which is still being hidden from the public. It apparently takes the mind of a “criminal justice attorney” to justify that murder as the protection of democracy. Characterising the Republican party as an authoritarian movement is another complete fabrication and an example of the leftist tactic of accusing the opposition of what you are doing yourself. I will agree that, “There are no longer two healthy parties in America”. There is a majority of charlatans and politicians without the courage to defend the foundational principles. My guess is that most of those who are voting conservative are disappointed that our elected representatives are not doing nearly enough to protect our guaranteed legal rights as citizens against the predatory instincts of the left and their manipulation of the miserable, ignorant, poor, sick and unskilled new arrivals to this country.

Is it not entirely ironic that a representative of the party that supports destruction of preborn human life, the separation of children from their parents’ counsel for abortion and life-altering destructive gender chemical castration, the surreptitious teaching of the devisive and racist Critical Race Theory, destruction of the value of our currency with exploding budget bills for “infrastructure”, that include everything except the conventional definition, and the unfettered importation and unaccountable dispersal of untold thousands of migrants in cooperation with the worst illicit drug and human trafficking criminal elements, many of whom have untreated Covid to complain about a lack of “decency”? I believe I will look to the tried and proven sources of moral instruction in the churches they are trying so hard to close before I ever take the reproof of a Democrat on that subject. I honestly don’t understand how one begins a dialogue with people who have so lost touch with the traditional consensus of real decency, having no factual arguments and only resort to derision, shame and the default accusation of racism to push their totalitarian agenda. Being an educated, experienced, thinking American who can recognise an animal by its characteristics and habits, I am completely convinced that the renewed push for increased fear of the Chinese virus is to keep the extraordinary and unaccountable voting forms in place to benefit the most unpopular administration since the Viet Nam War era. It is past time for more people to be circumspect than compliant.

John Brooks Parker, Bandera, TX

Editor’s Note: I’d like to thank Mr. Parker for calling my attention to the previous use of “warning labels” on the political columns. Starting this issue, I will make sure submissions from the Bandera County Republican Party or the Bandera Democrat Club are marked as “Republican Column” or “Democrat Column.”