COLUMN: Atop list of most irritating

I have read a lot of irritating remarks in letters and columns in The Press but nothing to compare with the absolute drivel in Chad Solsvik’s My Turn column of Oct. 12. Mr. Solsvik appears to present himself as a Christian while blasting Republicans as indifferent to the needy.

As a lifelong and dedicated Catholic and a similarly (not identically) dedicated conservative (which, in today’s world means Republican) I take deep offense at his claims. To begin he totally ignores the Democrats’ efforts to make everyone dependent on the government, making them the needy who then require the government to help them survive. He twists our opposition to this into a fabricated opposition to the genuinely needy. He takes a remark by one Republican about the influence of one author’s ideology as an indication that all Republicans are unwavering disciples of that author. This is logic? He implies that any anti-gay position is not biblical. This makes one wonder what bible he reads. He slips in a vote for Obamacare which is being ever increasingly revealed as a tragic blow against the needy.

Speaking of the Bible he appears to have one quite different from mine. Where exactly in the Bible is aid to the poor identified as a duty of the state? I always thought it was a personal responsibility. Can he tell us how, at final judgment time, the state will be called upon to explain or be praised for its treatment of the poor? Obviously it will have to be called if it has the responsibility.

His demonizing the Republicans while the anti-religious anti-religion Democrats who almost threw God in the dumpster at their last convention and roundly booed the decision to back off that position would be, if not so tragic, screamingly funny.

PHIL MEMBURY

Coeur d’Alene