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Dear Editor:

As a fan of a spirited debate, I was overjoyed to be called a fool by Gene Brooks under the guise of piety (reference to the letter in the Wednesday, April 8, edition).

I am sure some would call that inappropriate. Yes, my article in the February 28 edition was strongly worded. But this type of reaction to fact is typical, no matter the party. If you don’t have the facts on your side, bang your fists on the table. Just like the president.

In a perfect world, this country would have numerous large parties which would make sense as we are the most diverse nation in the world’s history. I have chosen the lesser of two evils and hope that the base values of the party will overtake the modern, uneducated, millennial interpretation of them. And yes, that is a tall order indeed. You could more easily argue the same for the GOP.

And because I detest publicized members of my party like the speaker of the house, representatives Omar, Ocasio-Cortez and others with a fervor only surpassed by my disdain for the president, I am ever hopeful that we will soon return to a Theodore Roosevelt-type of progressivism.

Churchill once said that the definition of a fanatic is “one who will never change their mind or the subject.”

I am not out to change the minds of fanatics like Gene Brooks. I exist, as should we all, to point out the factual flaws of statements or ideas to those who would otherwise be influenced by them.

People who accept what they are told without question are the greatest danger this country has ever encountered. We are only a country of free people when we question that which we are told. What does that make us right now?

Tom Noehren

Farmville