Sarasota letters to the editor 7.9.15

YOUR FLAG SOPHISTRY IS A DISSERVICE TO READERS

The sophistry in your “Confederate Flag” editorial is beneath the intelligence of your newspaper and its readers.

Even if it’s true that the absence of the word “slavery” from Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address is by itself dispositive, and even if it’s true that the Confederate states did not secede because of slavery, those facts are irrelevant.

The proper question is not what the flag meant during the Civil War, but what it means today. Do you honestly believe that those who fly the Confederate flag today are doing so to honor “free trade”? If so, logic dictates you must similarly believe that those who use the swastika today are doing so to honor the symbol’s Sanskrit roots.
Joseph Bartel
Sarasota

Of course we don’t believe that! Our point, to try again, was this: It’s a tragedy the flag has become a symbol of hate and racism and that so few Americans know there was much more to the Civil War than emancipation. — Ed.

A LIE-FILLED EDITORIAL; YOU SHOULD APOLOGIZE

Your June 25 editorial, “Confederate Flag,” is a lie-filled and unjournalistic fraud.

Did you not Google your concerns at all, or did you just not care and preferred to regurgitate right-wing falsehoods?

For some corrective information, go to: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jun/25/gavin-mcinnes/tweet-civil-war-was-about-secession-not-slavery/

In particular, read and digest the references to the various states’ declarations of secession.

And then do the humble thing that any upright journalist would do: Print a retraction and apology in your next issue.

David Coyle
Sarasota

How the left wants to squelch your liberty

I read your publication every week. I particularly enjoy your commentary. I am an admirer of Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek, so you will understand why I agree with you almost all the time.

The July 2 edition set me off to a rage (albeit contained except for grinding teeth) when I read the Letters to the Editor. They accuse you of pettiness, racism and of being inflammatory, while suggesting you stop writing opinion pieces and stick to the ads.

This shows one more time how the progressive busybody left’s best argument and defense is insult, unfounded accusations and the disparaging of any diverse ideas.

It must be clear by now to every sensible person that what the left wants is to silence the opposition and reduce to zero the personal liberty of the individual, while imposing its will and acquiring absolute power over our actions and thoughts.

Being an immigrant and the daughter of a refugee from one of the Baltic states and former USSR, I am dismayed and terrified by the direction this once magnificent country is taking.

When I first moved here, I started reading the Sarasota daily and soon I realized how biased it was and on the wrong side of everything I ever admired about the U.S.

I dropped it like a scolding stone and picked up the Observer.

Thank you so very much. 

Rosanna Rapalavicius
Sarasota