Roy Exum
Several weeks ago, I received an anonymous email from a writer who so well shared my conservative, and I pray, my Christian beliefs that I included it in an opinion piece on Chattanoogan.com under the appropriate heading, “I’ll Sign This Letter.” Now another comes along. This one is also unsigned, yet it is now going viral on Facebook with literally thousands of “likes” and shares.” What is most surprising is that it exactly represents my feelings about our country and its leadership on both the national and state level right now in its each and every sentence.
Because I have been a writer for a real long time, you should know that every article I post on Chattanoogan.com gets picked up by the big search engines like Google News, Yahoo, Bing and others.
I never requested this should happen, nor received a nickel for such notoriety, but it has increased my incoming emails from around the country to such a point I cannot physically respond to the flood of responses that blesses my computer’s inbox each day. I read as many as I can and appreciate the fact somebody takes the time to share their beliefs with me. Really, I do.
I try to read the replies and, as I have often remarked, my detractors are far-and-away my best teachers because they force me to think, to question myself, to see from “both sides” of life’s river. But, every day, I end up being the same person who writes an opinion. (Yeah, opinions are like elbows; everybody’s got a couple and I relish the fact there is such a difference among us.)
An Internet friend, whom I have yet to meet but who has become a beloved friend to me in recent years with his mischief and what he shared, sent the Facebook post to me, and please know I was moved by its calm, down-to-earth appeal:
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(NOTE: Roy, I did not write the essay or commentary that is about to follow, but I copied it from the Facebook timeline of a long-time friend. She has said she also copied it, but the point I want to make is that I agree with and support every comment and point that is made in this statement. This is where I stand. If you feel so moved, I suggest that you forward it, but that's up to you.)
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THIS IS GOING VIRAL ON FACEBOOK
In just three months, it will be over. The U.S. Presidential election, I mean. Not the end of the world, but maybe the end of our nation, as we have known it. No, I will not be voting for Biden.... I am not voting for a man. I am not rallying for a personality. I am not pushing a person. At this point, I am voting for one thing and one thing only. I am voting for the principles for which this country has stood since its founding. I am voting for Constitutional government.
I am voting for a strong and viable military. I am voting for a vibrant economy. I am voting for the right to keep and bear arms. I am voting for the freedom to worship. I am voting for the ability for anyone to rise above their circumstances and become successful. I am voting for my children and grandchildren to be able to choose their own path in life, including how and where their children are educated.
I am voting for our borders to be open to everyone who enters under our law and closed to everyone who would circumvent or ignore the law. I am voting for the Electoral College to remain in place, so that a few heavily populated liberal centers do not control the elections. I am voting for a Supreme Court that interprets the Constitution rather than rewrites it. I am voting to teach history, with all of its warts, not erase it or revise it.
Now, there are some things I am voting against. I am voting against open borders. I am voting against a rampant welfare system that enslaves its recipients. I am voting against socialism, in all of its forms, including health care, redistribution, reparations, economics, governmental control, pedophilia, and criminal releases, etc. I would rather pay for prison reform then see the criminals released to repeatedly commit the same crimes!
So, although I don’t give blanket approval to everything our President has done or said in the past, I do support him as our President! I am not voting against Joe Biden, but I am voting against everything that the party backing him and propping him up stands for. It is not the Democratic Party of the past.
Three months is all we have.
(And, yes, this is what I believe.)
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On Sunday I wrote a story on the horrifying 80 straight nights of unbridled riots in Portland. I predicted a riot would break out Saturday night, this after my story was written earlier in the day. (“A National Embarrassment,” Aug. 16). On Monday I wrote another about Portland (“The Morning After” Aug. 17) about the riot that most indeed did occur on the West Coast on Saturday after the Oregon State Police had vacated the city. Now we learn on Sunday night there was more of the same mayhem in the city that will not prosecute those who have been arrested in the first 80 days of rioting. On Sunday night the driver of a truck was pulled from his vehicle and savagely beaten. The near-unconscious man was left in the middle of the road and ordered not to move. It was then he was kicked in the head in such a horrifying way that yesterday the victim was said to be in critical condition in a Portland hospital.
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On Sunday night there was a third shooting in the Woodlawn neighborhood in Portland in the last few weeks. In July there were 99 shootings in Portland, three times the number a year ago. Also, for the past three nights numerous 911 calls did not get a police response.
royexum@aol.com