Re: Jeff Hastie’s letter to editor, Jan. 18 South Peace News.
Jeff Hastie, I did not call Trump a facist. I called him a carpet bagger. I believe a carpet bagger is more along the lines of a crook, and an opportunist who takes advantage of other people’s misfortune.

As I have been saying for probably 40 years now, I am neither Liberal nor Conservative. Now what you consider my views to be is another matter it would seem. I will not argue the semantics with you.

If you want to argue political stances and the results thereof bring it. I am in my sixties, and when I was growing up in that ‘sleepy little backwater’ which is not quite the end of the road, politics was a big deal. I personally remember many of those people including Tommy Douglas, who these days might best be remembered as Kiefer Sutherland’s grandfather. Such is the world we live in.

People who love to cry communism and fascism do not understand that frequently it does not matter what you call it. When you wander too far from what I call the ‘middle of the road’ the results are frequently the same. Loss of individual liberty, civil rights abuses, and concentration of power in fewer and fewer hands.

Hitler put millions of Jews, Gypsies, and handicapped persons in the ovens. In Russia, people were sent to the end of the railroad in Siberia, during the winter, without supplies.

There was a story that while building that railroad they found a mammoth and stated that the meat tasted fairly good. How hungry would they have to be to eat the flesh of an animal dead for thousands of years.

It does not matter the beliefs you swear loyalty to. When you do these things you are still killing masses of people. If you are down with that…

If you do not think there should be a department of education, I question your commitment to the future of any children you may or might have.
You are free to make your choices; but, you must also realize there will come a day when you will not be there to protect and provide for them. In preparation for that day, I believe that a child must be educated in a manner that will allow them to meet the basic standards that they need to move forward.

At home you are perfectly within your rights to teach Creationism, but they need to know enough about evolution to pass the tests. Remember the Flat Earth?

A great deal of science is based on certain ideas. If you have a really smart child who wants to do rocket science let him or her learn the things they need to know to get there.

Betsy DeVos has been campaigning for years for vouchers that parents can use to get their children an alternative education. In some states she succeeded. The result was that in one state where her plan was adopted the children who went to these schools did not do as well as children who attended the public school system in that state.

Your final point, that I ‘gleaned’ the information from ‘some online progressive rag’? I will say I very carefully read what find and frequently chase down other sources. I am not sure what Hastie means by the sentence, “Did she use that to describe her own position? Which position are you talking about? She isn’t the Secretary of Education yet.”

Here is another buggaboo. Fake news. Everybody uses that term to refute news items they don’t agree with. Don’t want to believe it, you don’t have to. No need to disprove it, just call it fake news and dismiss it. This is dangerous.

The nasty rhetoric and name calling that many people indulge in will gain no friends. It is my hope for the next election here in Alberta is that people frothing at the mouth stay home. They just might be the death of the conservative parties they usually represent.

I do not support the concept of big government myself, but when you live in a world that is changing as fast as ours with a population that is growing as fast as ours is, government will be in our faces more and more.

Do I want big government? No!

Do I want proper standards for health care, education, and the environment? Yes!

I don’t want just any fool who found a toy stethoscope in his Christmas stocking setting up shop as a doctor. I don’t want children getting passed without meeting the minimum requirements. There are children who went through school without achieving literacy. I don’t want my tap water exploding.

What does Donald Trump plan for his presidency? I am not sure he plans anything besides leaving office a lot richer than he went in.

Does Vladimir Putin have anything on him? Of course, he is former KGB, he has something on everybody, is it pertinent or even true…would I believe it? I would check it out.

A final thought. I don’t think Trump challenged the political left. The Democrats are a little to the left of the Republicans but they are both conservative parties. That election would have been the end of the Democrats even if Hillary Clinton had won. Voter suppression was rife in the primaries and the election itself. A lot of those people were young, young enough they will be back.

As for the first letter. All the name calling. Not necessary. It is like you were channeling Trump himself.

I could say a lot more but that would make the editor edit.
Eva Sartorius,
High Prairie