About Upson beacon. (Thomaston, Ga.) 2008-current | View Entire Issue (April 24, 2024)
opinion Wednesday, April 24, 2024 • Page 4A Send your letters to: Editor, Upson Beacon, 219 Thomas Street, Thomaston, Ga 30286 or email to: dlord@upsonbeacon.com The opinions expressed on this page are not necessarily the opinions of the Upson Beacon staff. Please limit letters to 400 words, and limited to two letters per month. All letters must be signed and accompanied by a telephone number for verification purposes. Telephone numbers will not be printed. Media Bias: Deja vu All Over Again It was 1789; France was on the verge of bankruptcy, partly because of a loan (they could hardly afford) solicited by Thomas Jefferson from King Louis XVI to help finance the American Revolution. Over the objections of the king’s finance ministers, the loan to America was made. As an aside, America never re paid the loan; France fell into bank ruptcy. The peasants were starving for the lack of bread, or were without funds to pay the inflated prices for the bread, a predicament caused (ac cording to a biased press), by King Louis’ fiscal mismanagement and ex cessive taxation. These are only two of other causes of the French Revolution. The press completely dismissed the im prudent loan to America, the starving people, and Louis’s apologia for inflated bread prices. Here is the way the French liberal media described the fervor for revolution. The liberal pamphlets lampooned the ill-starred alliance with the old enemy (Austria) with the marriage of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (the daughter of Maria Theresa, empress of Austria). The press further, wrongly and maliciously, accused Marie Antoinette of draining the French treasury at the behest of her whims of extravagance. When rumors of her purchase of a sumptuous diamond necklace were disproved, the press would not retract the accusation against the queen; instead, they doubled down and eventually convinced the French to believe it to be true, the capture of the real culprits notwithstanding. The French press, posing as truth tellers about the state of France, opted, at the urgings of such liberals as Maximil- lian Robespierre, Jean-Jacques-Rousseau, Voltaire, Re- quitti Mirabeau, and (though obliquely, through his French proxies) Thomas Jefferson, all vehemently opposed to the French Monarchy, became morphed into the political ex tension of these enlightened liberals. Realizing that the crop failures, bread shortages, and Louis’ incompetence would not be enough to bring down the throne, the press resorted to slanderous, personal at tacks. The focus of the press was to smear Marie Antoinette as having Austrian sympathies, contra to French interests, as well as her sexual deviancy within her own family. The French press’ goals to bring down the monarchy are politically parallel to, and the equivalence of, our mod ern-day liberal pundits, e.g. Joe Scarborough, MSNBC; Ra chel Maddow, NBC; Don Lemon, CNN; Jim Acosta, CNN; Joy Reid, WNBC; and the mother of all propagandists, Wolf Blitzer, CNN. News outlets such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal, The New Yorker Magazine, Mother Jones, and the Atlantic all clamor vigorously for the rights to quote these rabid, anti-everything Trump, liberal news pimps. King Louis XVI, his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, as well as most of his courtiers, ministers, armed and un armed opposition (numbering some 20,000 known pro monarchist, or even suspicioned) were beheaded in front of cheering crowds waiving pamphlets authored by the lib eral darlings of the press, especially Robespierre, who created the slogan for the revolution, Liberte, Egalite, Fra- temite (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity). Robespierre, unfortunately, fell out of favor with the new regime and was guillotined amid raucous cheers. The morning after, in bold letters, appeared on the pamphlet’s headlines: Robespierre, Traitor, guillotined! Does any of this sound familiar? James Studdard, B.A., M.A., JD, D.Rel TFD Chief's Corner: Thomaston Fire Department Chief Shane Foster provided the following report for what the de partment has completed during the month of March: Total number of incidents: 111. Total incidents include the fol lowing: •Medical - 68 •Motor vehicle accidents - five •Helicopter standby -14 •Fires - one •Automatic alarms - nine •Service calls - six •Hazmat - two •Roadway hazard/other - four •Mutual aid - one •Rescues - one TFD completed a total of 49 pre-fire plans/building inspections, which assist personnel with knowledge of building layouts if there is ever an incident. TFD personnel completed a total of 395 training hours between three shifts, which include in-service hours and hours at the Georgia Fire Academy. The department also participated in a number of public relations and fire safety education events such as the “Wake it Up, Shake it Up” program at Riverside Nursing Home and the “March Madness” game at Prov idence Nursing Home. TFD additionally welcomed stu dents from Upson-Lee PreK during a field trip to the station for the community helper program and members of the Thomaston-Upson Chamber of Commerce Adult Leadership program. The Upson Beacon Shining Light & Keeping Watch on Our Community 706-646-2382 • upsonbeacon.com TFD Chief Shane Foster If Dining with the Devil... Bring a Long Fork It’s hard to describe the unalterable feeling of myself and a growing number of others that WE... OUR country... OUR civilization is being marched... herded... pushed... shoved into darker and darker corners of exis tence by a government and RADICALS in league to destroy EVERYTHING we cherish. Only those in league with THEM or those oblivious could at this point deny or ignore it. In either case, WE must prepare for what appears to be dark times in the not-too-distant future. The closer the election approaches, the greater the danger from numerous directions. Prepare. Will it be another series of riots like the George Floyd/BLM riots set off by another career criminal drug addict OD’ing on drugs, dying, used an ex cuse? Will it be a former President being imprisoned on bogus criminal charges in Stalin-like show trials? Will it be another election stolen/interfered with by the FBI, CIA, NSA as has been done in the last three elections? Will it be terrorists that have been herded through the gaping wound called the southern border, attacking in a score/hundred different places when Iran gives the order? Will it be Chinese subversives whose numbers have increased 5,000-fold since Biden was elected through that same border that will attack our electrical/com munication infrastructure/grid, shut ting down electrical power throughout the country? Will it be all the above? It is, to me, one of those "You are either with US or against us” mo ments. We have arrived here... been forced into this position by "RADI CALS.” And little by little, inch by inch, they have managed to slither into key positions of power and pushed us to the edge of the abyss to the point we are in jeopardy of not surviving - and that is not hyperbole -1 mean surviv ing... living or dying. Freedom or slav ery. That kind of survival. It’s been just three-plus years since Biden and the radical Democrats seized power and the destruction began immediately and has continued at a pace that is truly remarkable. When I say RADICAL, I mean something very specific... EX TREME!!! FA NATICAL!!! We may not be able to define it, but we know it when we hear/see it. RADICALS are having UN- PR E CE DE N T E D influence over the destruction of America. Radical is like the difference in gay lifestyle and then saying there is no difference in a man and woman. Or men get pregnant and can menstruate, need tampon dis pensers in restrooms. That’s what RADICALS do - take legitimate con cerns/causes, adding EXTREMISM beyond recognition. Transform “live and let live,” which, most believe, into “men get pregnant?” A RADICAL is a perverted man pretending to be women, exposing himself to girls, women in locker rooms and bathrooms, with the back ing of RADICAL school boards and RADICAL Democrat politicians. Then calling it gay rights. What do you call those that allow, encourage, promote... confused kids to have mastectomies, be castrated, in jected with poisons/puberty blockers that chemically castrate and stop the normal biological process of growing to adulthood? I call that monstrous and RADICAL. Those RADICALS call it "gender affirming care" and disguise it by latching on like parasites to legiti mate concerns of some in the gay com munity. Radical is forcing a warped ideo logy that determines those chosen for doctors and pilots and presidents of Harvard based on the color of their skin rather than their accomplish ments, skills, ability, and performance, as “D.I.E.” - Diversity, Inclusion, Equity - does, then calling those op posed RACIST. Their motto, “You must be racist to end racism.” What do you call people that mur der, rape, steal, human smuggle/slave trade? Criminals, right? Those same individuals are walk ing OUR streets, sitting beside OUR kids/grandkids in OUR schools, sitting in OUR hospitals and doctors’ offices while we wait outside and pay for them with OUR tax dollars... Call it what you like. I call that and those that allow it RADICAL. What do you call politicians that allow, encourage, invite them into our country to invade our country by mil lions as Biden and the RADICAL Dem ocrats do? What is the difference between the criminals and those that let them in? I'll let others split that hair because I don't see a difference. What do you call monsters that at tack civilians, chop heads off, bake babies to a crisp in ovens and micro- wave them, while alive, rape corpses as the HAMAS RADICAL fanatic lunatics did on Oct. 7 to 1,200 Israelis; then cheerfully call home to their parents and friends excitedly to report their deeds as if they won a championship game? What do you call those same NAZIS here in America on OUR streets on OUR college campuses that are rioting/protesting screaming DEATH to AMERICA with the FULL support of Democrat politicians? Don’t like the word RADICAL... EVIL is a good substitute. What do you call Joe Biden, who has given Iran, the sponsor of HAMAS and a score of other terrorist groups like HAMAS, billions of our tax dollars to continue their slaughter? Can you say RADICAL? What do RADICALS call ANYONE that disagrees with them? Can you say MAGA??? Want to sit down and negotiate or discuss things with these Nazi RADI CALS? Better bring a long fork. Alan Landers American Capitalist Democracy: Preserving the Vitality of Own Institutions As imperfect and messy as our sys tem of government is, compared to all other political/governmental systems that have ever existed, I am committed to and would willingly die defending our capitalist democracy. I find myself contemplating this after learning how young (bight eyed and bushy tailed) our founding fathers were when they met for five months to hammer out, debate, conceive, write, agree, and signed our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Johnathan Dayton and Thomas Lynch were 26, Thomas Jefferson was 33, and Geroge Washington was 44 when 39 of them signed those intrepid documents on Sept. 17,1787, in Phila delphia. Count me among those who hope these ideas and our commitment to these principles that have guided us (the American miracle) will not only survive but thrive forever as a beacon to the rest of the world and what Pres ident Ronald Reagan referred to as “the city on the hill” in his farewell speech. He said, “We changed a world... Because we are a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will al ways be this way. But if we remember Waine ’s World: our first principles and believe in our selves, the future will always be ours... Countries across the globe are turning to free markets and free speech and turning away from the ideologies of the past... The moral way of government is the practical way of govern ment: Democ racy, the p r ofo undly good, is also the profoundly pro ductive... “Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government... ‘We the people’ tell the government what to do, it does not tell us. ‘We the people’ are the driver - the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Al most all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which ‘we the people’ tell the govern ment what it is allowed to do... “I have thought a bit of the ‘shining city upon a hill’. The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important be cause he was an early pilgrim - an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we would call a little wooden boat, and, like the other pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. “I have spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I do not know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind, it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativ ity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors, and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. “That is how I saw it, and see it still. And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that: after See Kong, 6A B. Waine Kong, Ph.D.JD But payoff MY STUDENT LOAN FIRST
