I'm not a writer or a person of the highest education. I have a high standard of right and wrong and admit I don't always achieve it myself. I invite anyone interested to view my website  www.chuckstraub.com and go to  the section I call "Quotes worth Quoting". Here are quotations I have heard, that say things I believe are important but are better said and written than anything I could write myself. Leave your opinion of my site in my guest book. All views are welcome there. Coming from a pro military, conservative, my country right or wrong my country, NRA member, you may be surprised by some of my favorite quotations. From the sound of the talk list, it seems some very hateful emails may have been privately sent to other members. Why should you or I care about someone else's fight? I will use two quotations which I believe in, and think they apply to the more hateful emails. This is why we should not sit by and do nothing.....

 

I was not afraid of the words of the violent, but of the silence of the honest... Martin Luther King 

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me....... By Pastor Niemoller

According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, "Martin Niemoller was a Protestant pastor and head of the anti-Nazi Confessing Church. Arrested for 'malicious attacks against the state', he spent seven years in the Dachau and Sachsenhausen Released in 1945 by the Allies."

Am I dramatizing this out of proportion? Yes I am, but the basic essence of the text does apply. We should speak out against malicious, hateful statements, even when it is against one of our members that we disagree with. I have never met any of the parties involved in this but this is my community also. It is our community.  Lets stop the hate. Lets speak out whenever things start getting out of hand, whenever someone seems to be outnumbered and is accosted with hateful sentiments, but do so in a way that we are not turning hate onto the opposite side. Carefully choose our words so we don't hurt others.This probably isn't coming out the way I want it to. Like I said, I'm not the greatest at writing or presenting my thoughts. If I did not come across the way I wanted to, well, we all can have a good laugh. If I did, lets stop this fighting every other week. Lets just live and let live. "To see the right and not to do it is cowardice." - Confucius. I just know that I am going to be ridiculed for this email ,but you know what, it doesn't really matter. I did and said what I think is right with no malice to anyone. For that I am proud, despite anything that can be said about me or my opinion.....Chuck and Molly

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Thank you Chuck.

 Chuck Straub <woodschuckstraub@yahoo.com> wrote:

I was not afraid of the words of the violent, but of the silence of the honest... Martin Luther King 

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me....... By Pastor Niemoller

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