6/24/2011

Invitation to Herr Spier

As is usually the case, nay, always the case, whenever a letter arrives in the paper that is at odds with the preconceived ideas of Mr. Spier, he takes it upon himself in his inimitable style to try and prove to his other admirer-er, that his view is the only correct one and all others are deeply flawed and suspect. It must be tough to live on such a small Island and not be able to find others of the same towering intellect to converse with in a rational and reasonable manner. So in the interim I guess the next best thing is to cast aspersions of mental deficiency on anyone who dares depart from the norm of the elitists among us.

So while we are using quotes from famous folks lets try and not let this one pass. It is also from Mr. Spiers first choice of mentors, Mr. Ghandi to wit;
- Many people imagine that they alone are right and everyone else wrong, and they do not consider that there is anything unworthy in forcing their point of view down other's throats. This error has to be rectified. If we are in the right, we must have infinite patience.

“August sources”? Although I am an agnostic, I'll give you Jesus and Buddha, but no way in hell will I give you Mohammed! And if you are not completely obtuse you will know why. While I was out there circumnavigating the oceans of the world, courtesy of Uncle Sam, I had hundreds of hours to read from cover to cover both the Bible and the Koran/Quran, plus a few hundred others as well.

You “suspect” very wrongly that my rhetoric is the product of Glen Becks TV program. I have seen about a total of 3-4 hours of his shows. So you are totally wrong on at least that one count, and who knows how many more. Oh I would love to hear your “moral and ethical rebuttals” of our positions. They will most likely have all been espoused before by all those sites listed below and your endeavors will be naught but a repeat and rehash of the same failed policies and ideas. You do so love to denigrate and demean other people in public arenas, witness your years on the Zoning board, and your most recent missive to this paper.

And I also could “fill the newspaper with facts, figures, and argument” to support my positions. From sources a lot more ethical than the NYT, the WashPo, Media Matters, The Huffington Post, The Daily Koz, Code Pink, and on and on ad nauseum. What is that old saying, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”? That is why I read those idiots!

Do you really want to do this debate in a forum where quite a few people will see it? Well I will give you the opportunity to avail yourself of that forum which is already in place and has been for six and one half years. Seeing as you deem this newspapers “Letters to the Editor”column to be an inappropriate location for said conversation, hie yourself to this spot on the internet, www.islandvoice.blogspot.com and there you may vent till your heart is content! You bring your numbers and I'll bring mine. We'll keep this list of topics you enumerated by the computer so as not to miss any of the subjects of which you think Bob Zeringo and I are so totally deficient in.

And for your edification, as most people are not wont to write letters to the editor for fear of being the subject of one of your hurtful tirades against them, in the course of the last two to three weeks I have had quite a lot of people either call, drop a note in the mail, or approach me on the street/store/post office to tell me that they approved most heartily of what I had written!

See you in the ether, but please, don't come as, Anonymous! Everett R Littlefield



ED. Please feel free to cut out anything you deem necessary as I am going to post this on my blog also. Just put a note at the end that the full text can be found there. I am, as are so many others before me, sick and tired of being on the receiving end of that mans oh so subtle invective! Thanks, Everett.

11 comments:

Sam said...

I dunno, I didn't think Mr. Soer's letter was all that bad, although it rambled like your letter and your recent blog post. No offense, but what do a bunch of religious symbols have to do with Obamacare, and why do you have to make it a moralistic argument too? Cut to the chase: you don't like the idea of socialized health care because there are a bunch of slackers out there.

Nor do I and that's a perfectly good comment.

But let's take a look at something that could blow your argument wide open: the military including the USN.

That's the ultimate form a socialism, is it not? The government will pay you to get trained, eat, sleep, keep well, and get fixed up if you get hurt or sick. They have their own rehab, free of charge. If you're an officer, the retirement pay isn't bad. Vets can take advantage of more medical services if they so desire, at any time.

Strange that a retired USN man can't see some of that, or perhaps that some folks didn't "serve" and somehow are second class citizens. But alas, even the military system isn't so good either. A lot end up on the streets, homeless, or stuck in a bar. I was walking with a friend of my daughter and when a car backfired he hit the ground, rolled, and "took up position," freaked us all out. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a bad thing.

So where are we going with all this? Sure, the reform needs reform and we need to drive down the costs of health care and drugs. The amount of profits and fraud is truly obscene - a problem the military doesn't have. I also thing in the reform we need to make it a pay-go system that is self-sustaining instead of racking up such huge debt. We need ideas like that, Everett, not no fighting or bickering over stale policy and partisan politics. We need some new ideas my friend.

Sam said...

Mr. "Spier" and the blog wouldn't let me fix that. My apologies.

Everett said...

Sam,I did not introduce the religious symbols into the mix, Spier did and I have no idea why other than to again demonstrate his overarching intellect, to himself mostly!!

While my rich Uncle Sam was paying me for all that training,eating, sleeping etc. he also had his hand in my pocket taking out taxes and still is on my retirement money. It is NOT FREE. Have you ever had the misfortune of trying to get to see certain types of medical people at a VA hospital? Does not happen at "any time". There are long waits involved! There are and were LONG LONG deployments from family while taking that small pittance in remuneration. But I knew all that going in and was willing to commit to it. When you come out of the military, there is no one who is going to hold your hand anymore and tell you what to do . You have to take responsibility for yourself and if you have a problem, go find help.

Don't know how you extrapolate from anything I said that I think people who were not in the military are second class citizens! Where the hell did THAT come from?

I don't pretend to have the answers, but obamacare certainly is not it! If you agree that we are in deep poo now, wait a couple years till it starts draining the life out of us.

Old NFO said...

Somehow I really doubt he will show up... And Sam, trust me, the military is NOT socialism... If it was, we wouldn't work the hours we did (and the kids still do), nor would we put our lives on the line for what little pay we received. If you really believe that, how do you explain people going back to the 'Stans for multiple tours when they could simply walk away?

Everett said...

I was going to put this in the above comment but forgot it.

Remember when all the guys came home from VN?How they were spit on and vilified at every turn. People wouldn't hire them and that was one reason so many lived on the street.55,000 + of them didn't come home, and many of them that did were missing pieces of themselves, up there in the braincase also. So who were the second class citizens? WE WERE!

NFO mentioned the hours we put in on our jobs. I can recall being out there on a US carrier, 7 of them, steaming around for days on end and being involved in all sorts of NATO and other exercises. These went on 24 hours a day for weeks on end. And you have to remember working up there on a flight deck is the most hazardous job in existence. Add in the dark of night with NO white light allowed and you can triple the danger factor. Just Sayin'

Sam said...

I'm just saying that even with all the warts and problems, the military has a pretty good system. Obamacare does not. See what I mean there?

Even the most die-hard Leftie Democrat will tell you that the bill was no good, far from perfect, and had so much fine print in it we're just yet finding out how stupid it was.

But that doesn't mean the idea behind healthcare reform was bad - the Republicans have been talking about it for years. Clearly, we need some kind of reform. Too many ideas from the old Clinton cabinet got in there and that was a big mistake.

And Everett, some of my best friends served in 'Nam. I was a little younger and Nixon stopped the draft the day I was supposed to report to Hartford, CT. I never protested no veteran and we usually drink beer together unless they're off the wagon. But many are still my best friends.

Emmett said...

To compare the US military to socialism is the most insane thing I have ever heard. Are you kidding me? What limited credibilty you had, Sam, you just blew. That idea is so stupid on so many levels, I can't even begin.

Sam said...

Sorry Emmet, the military is the closest you can get to socialism in the US, even more pure than the labor unions. The military requires racial equality, now even sexual equality, has a liberal medical system that is the envy of even socialists in Sweden. They have possibly the best children's day-care program for working parents anywhere. Oh, and the military is even concerned about climate change - and is doing something about it too!

"It's the purest application of socialism there is," Wesley Clark, the retired four-star general and former supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe...."

So you're going to tell me that a nationally respected 4-star general was full of it? The same guy who helped Newt Gingrich when he sought advice?

Your lack of an open mind to be able to see such obvious things is rather troubling to me. Do you think that the military is an open democracy with a capitalist system and you can do whatever you want? LOL, you must have been in the Air Force or something!

emmett said...

You and the general should look up the meaning of socialism.

Everett said...

Well it looks like there is nothing else happening here so it is time to move on to the next thingy.

Everett said...

Apparently Herr Spier has a hard time separating quotes made by other folks a long time ago, from someone re-quoting the same one in a new time frame. All of a sudden "I" am the originator of the "friends and enemies" writings! And idiots are idiots the world over and a simple disagreement between two parties doesn't really engender either party with the tag of idiot. To qualify for that moniker, you have to work at it over an extended time period, while voicing vapid, insipid, and rediculous, and patently untrue "ism's" that have been proven invalid over and over again.

Her is Herr Spiers retort to my last letter to the editor of the BIT.
To: the Editor—

In Everett Littlefield’s world, people with whom he disagrees are “enemies” and “idiots.” He thinks that I’m narrow-minded?-John Spier

And by the way Herr Spier, did you or did you not, have a running verbal joust in the self same BIT letters section with the Rev. Anthony Pappas that there was no such thing as a GOD. This was about 15 to 20 years ago I believe.
So why would a self avowed athiest/agnostic feel the need to quote these , in your opinion "fictional personages"? Or have you been reborn or just seen the light?