In July I will be 73-years-of-age, god willing. I was raised in a loving environment and grew up surrounded by people who for the most part lacked prejudice. Anger and hatred were not emotions I understood until I was in high school. Although I was raised Catholic, before I graduated from high school I renounced all organized religion. However, I strongly support any man or woman’s right to worship their god in any manner they choose and to belong to the religion of their choice. Americans are guaranteed both religious freedom and ‘freedom from religion’ by the first amendment.

I have several brothers-in-law who watch Fox Noise religiously, live in the south, and are militant members of the right-wing. One of them must have read one of my articles. He accused his sister and I of “going down a path of ignorance and stupidity.” I did not respond, but if I had, this is what I would have told him.

I am an informed American. I read constantly, and I read without bias. I refuse to watch Fox Noise, the right-wing propaganda machine created to support Republicans by Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes in 1996. Therefore, I am not brainwashed.

I do not exist in an atmosphere of anger, hatred, and finger-pointing. I am not ignorant, and therefore denounce bigotry and racism. I am a well-informed liberal who makes opinions and decisions based on facts and will never accept “alternative facts.” I am proud to be a member of the largest group of Americans, progressives.

I’m sure this would have made him an even angrier member of the right-wing and a more intense viewer of Fox Noise.

“The Truth Lives Here”

Op-ed by James Turnage

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