It’s refreshing to see the Cape Gazette publishing comedic essays from locals. The latest version in this vein is Hylton Phillips-Page’s diatribe that was published Nov. 12. His letter gave me and a number of other Democrats, Republicans, and Independents a huge laugh.
Phillips-Page pushes a false narrative that Democrats are “walking away” from the party because they “no longer accept the current ideology of liberalism and what the Democratic Party has become (from the walk away website).” If this is the case, perhaps Phillips-Page could explain why the number of registered Democrats continues to grow while the number of registered Republicans continues to shrink around the country, and why the Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives in 2018, defeated an incumbent Republican governor in a red state along with taking control of the Virginia General Assembly on Nov. 5.
One can find numerous articles on the internet, as well as data from local election offices, of this fact (yes, these stories are published by what Phillips-Page calls the mainstream media. However, a search for articles on the so-called Walk Away movement only yields articles from “news” organizations with a prominent right-wing slant - Breitbart, CBN, Daily Dot, etc.). Is he even a registered voter, much less a Democrat?
It seems that Phillips-Page’s complaints have nothing to do with the Democratic Party, but with people who file discrimination lawsuits against or organize boycotts of companies they perceive as discriminating against them.
How does he know whether the Colorado baker serves gay people? Has he surveyed his customers? I highly doubt it. By the way, the First Amendment says nothing about whether an individual must tolerate another’s religion. It reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Nothing in there about whether the LGBT community must accept Chick-fil-A’s owners’ religious beliefs or cannot condemn their donations to anti-equality groups.
As for assertion that “the governor of Virginia, a Democrat, openly advocated for post-term abortion,” this is just a complete falsehood. A quick check of Snopes shows that this subject has been rated as Mostly False. Here’s a link - www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-northam-abortion-execute.
It’s also clear that he doesn’t believe in a woman’s right to control her body as he derides a Democratic Party platform plank that protects a woman’s right to safe and legal abortion, without limits.
It’s also obvious that Phillips-Page doesn’t believe in an independent judiciary, as he points out that “Republicans are uncomfortable giving power to people we do not vote for.” His masking this under the guise of complaining about the UN and the Paris Climate Accord are just a ruse.
If Phillips-Page actually read the Constitution, he would know that Section Four of Article II establishes that the president and vice president may be removed from office through the impeachment process, for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The Constitution does not enumerate what qualifies as a high crime or misdemeanor.
The House of Representatives, operating under rules established when the House was under Republican control, is carrying out its constitutional duty. Nothing more, nothing less.
I suggest that Mr. Phillips-Page do less parroting of Fox and Friends talking points if he wants to be taken seriously in the future.
Meyer J. Persow
Wilton Manors, Fla.
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