LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: DECEMBER 14, 2024

 Allen to Allen 

Dear Allen Brown, 

Although your letter last week was directed to Stephen Cunha (who is quite capable of defending himself ) I am prompted by your (and my) vitriol to call for a truce in the STFU wars. 

But before doing that I was going to point out that telling our fellows to STFU is not only an ineffective rhetorical device but, in my opinion, un-American. Why? Because when told to STFU, people will generally and understandably do just the opposite. And, in fact, the Thirteen Colonies declared independence from Britain and fought the Revolutionary War because King George III kept telling the colonists to STFU. This, coupled with the Enlightenment philosophy that shaped the Founding Fathers’s vision of America – the notion that only through the free and open exchange of ideas can a society thrive – is why the right of free speech is so deeply embedded in its DNA. It is also why, although I did not care for its message, but whomever owned the pickup truck with the “Where’s Oswald When We Need Him?” sticker on its back window (see my November 30 letter) had a constitutional right to convey that thought – just as I had a constitutional right to tell him what I thought of the sticker. And so that is why, in my opinion, telling people to STFU is un-American. 

Before calling for a truce, I was also going to say that we probably have a lot more in common than we think. For my part, I agree things are fouled up in the U.S.; but, unlike your side I was going to say that I blame both sides: in a nutshell, I believe the Left has abandoned the Old Testament and the Right has abandoned the New Testament, and each is too busy committing the deadly sin of pride (along with a few other pick ‘ems) to admit fault. 

Yes, I was going to say all that before offering a truce, But the other night I re-read two letters my grandmother had written to my mother in November,1944; near the end of WWII; the first telling her that her younger brother Patrick – a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army – was missing in Holland; and the second a few days later confirming his death, at 20 years old, in a frozen hell, a few weeks before the start of the Battle of the Bulge. More difficult to read are the two letters he had written to grandmother a few months before – when he was in the infirmary for an injury he had suffered during boot camp, while undergoing basic training before heading off for the next wave of the Normandy invasion. And he was so lighthearted, joking about the college boys getting extra grief from the drill sergeants. Needless to say how sad to read those letters knowing he would never come back home alive. And thinking about him and all the other brave soldiers, sailors, and marines who have given their lives for this great country, and for the rights we take for granted – like the right of free speech – I felt pretty rotten about telling you to STFU. 

And so, my brother, for that reason and that reason alone – in honor and respect for all those Americans, and for that matter all those who have served and are serving – I call for a truce: you don’t tell me to STFU and I won’t tell you to STFU, OK? 

Allen Berrey 

Bishop