Dear editor:
Mr. Silverman's response (July 15, 2018) to my earlier letter, where I rebutted some of his statements concerning President Trump, attempts to put a negative spin on some of Trump's accomplishments in his recent letter. In this letter, I'll provide a "redo" and correct the spin.
First off, he blames Trump for the separation of children from their parents, which the liberal press and other Trump haters have been so vocal about. Trump was enforcing the law on the books. If you cross the border illegally, you are committing a crime, period, and he ordered a zero-tolerance policy, thus you are arrested. When adults are arrested and incarcerated for most any crime in this country and they have children, the parent is separated from their children and they are either placed with relatives or become wards of the state. No difference here.
If they wanted to seek asylum, they should've come through a legal point of entry and requested it and the kids would not have been separated. There is also a big question if many of these adults were truly their parents. Mr. Silverman conveniently failed to mention the same thing was going on under the Obama administration, in fact, some of the so-called cage pictures came from that time. Where was his outrage then?
Mr. Silverman then adopts the Nancy Pelosi tactic of criticizing the Trump tax cuts, by saying the rich got a big benefit and the average Joe, just a few hundred dollars. Sounds like the infamous Pelosi "crumbs" comment; that worked out well didn't? The top 1 percent pay nearly 40 percent of the federal income tax, so logic dictates, by raw numbers, the rich would see a higher dollar amount in taxes saved than somebody making a much lower amount in wages. Keep in mind nearly 50 percent of lower wages earners pay no federal income tax already.
Concerning the climate, Mr. Silverman had no rebuttal to the logical reasons why Trump pulled the country out of the Paris Climate Accords. He just regurgitated the liberal arguments on the man-made climate change theory, which some scientists still dispute.
Concerning his criticism on Democrats not being invited to meetings, why should he invite them? They are already on record for the most part in saying they oppose just about everything he wants to do. Good idea or bad idea, if Trump is for it, the Democrats are against it for the sole reason that Trump's name is connected to it.
The rest of his letter was just standard liberal attacks on Fox News and Trump himself, which you hear from other liberals and Trump haters. Not worthy of response. He asks am I competent to judge his degree of knowledge? I can only comment from what I read in his letters. I then responded appropriately, correcting as I saw necessary, as I've done here. It's not ego Stuart, just knowing right from wrong and using some common sense. I admit Trump is not perfect, but he is definitely two steps forward on policy from where we came.
Mike Williams
Hot Springs Village
Editorial on 07/22/2018