From Darkness into the Light

[Vince Ansel]

                                                               “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”

                                                           Nov 2019 RidersUSA newsletter article

For decades now I have incessantly seen, heard, and read about the evils of the Republican Party from Democrats and the “mainstream media”. According to these sources, Republicans are a culture of people who religiously engage in racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia and other phobias too numerous to mention. As a young man I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. As some of you may already know, Brooklyn is a bastion of Liberalism. People like Anthony Weiner, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Chuck Schumer, Judge Judy, Bernie Sanders, Barbara Streisand and a host of other noted Democrat/Socialists were raised there. Everyone we knew of was a Democrat. Getting and maintaining a job meant you were forced into being a Union member.

I was totally and irrevocably the product of my environment. We were taught at an early age about the evils of the Republican Party and an almost irreverent appreciation of Democrats. The Republicans were the Party of the rich and powerful. They were cruel taskmasters and despised the working class. Abuse of their employees was a well-accepted fact. Working conditions for employees was akin to conditions as described in Dante’s Inferno (hell). However, Democrats were of a different ilk as we were led to believe. They were heralded as the saviors of the people; a Party for the common, abused, hardworking men and women of our nation.

Everyone who lived in our Brooklyn neighborhood was Democrat through and through. Even the local Mafia gangsters were Democrats. I don’t believe I ever met a Republican (or anyone who would admit to it) until I was drafted into Military Service back in the late 60’s and left Brooklyn to mingle with other recruits from the heartland. That’s when I began to peel back the layers of indoctrination, lies and deceit that had been drummed into my head by Democrats for all of those years.

I learned that the Democrat Party is hardly the Party of “tolerance, equality and justice” as advertised. In this exclusive Democrat environment, I learned to stay out of Black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods. They were “bad people” who should be avoided. Black and Brown people stayed out of our neighborhoods for fear of being harassed, intimidated or assaulted. Likewise, we dared not stray onto their turf and suffer the same consequences. I learned what real Racism was all about…. not from Republicans but from fellow Democrats who simultaneously professed to be “sensitive” and “tolerant” of all races!

In this Democrat enclave, people who were gay, lesbian or transvestites were the object of ridicule, scorn and harassment. I certainly wasn’t influenced by Republicans to think in this manner because if you can recall in my earlier statement, you couldn’t find a Republican within 10 square miles!

Women were viewed as objects to be cajoled and manipulated. A female was not considered to being “equal” to a male. Women did not deserve equal pay to men having similar jobs. “Nice girls” who played by traditional rules in male/female relationships were somehow inferior and viewed with disdain.

I remember as a young Democrat the obsessive aversion to having “people of color” buying homes in white neighborhoods. As a “favor”, home sellers would have to assure neighbors that selling their property to a Black or Puerto Rican family was taboo. It was an unspoken pact that this was a “sign of respect” to the Democrat neighborhood. If a home seller did “break the rule” they were ostracized and condemned until the moving truck loaded with their possessions departed and the “offending” family was relieved from further harassment.

As I grew older and more politically astute, I came to realize that it was Democrats who had harassed and lynched Blacks. It was Democrats who resisted passing Civil Rights legislation back in the early to mid-1960’s. It was Democrats who targeted homosexuals for harassment. It was Democrats who relegated women to second class citizenry. And yet, despite the historical evidence of these transgressions, Democrats continue to convince and manipulate the very same peoples with whom they have abused since the founding of this nation in joining them to blame, you guessed it….Republicans! Admittedly there are some things that Democrats excel in over their political rivals…. Propaganda and Misinformation coupled with a Brilliant Marketing scheme!

[Arizona Freedom Alliance]

[Bruce M Piepho]

EXCELLENT - Well stated.  I wonder how many democrats consider them selves as Christians?

[mark singer]

It is more important not that you are a Christian, but a Born again Christian, and not a member of a Christian Cult. Being a member of a Christian Cult could mean in most cases that you support a One World Religion among other things such as One World Government, and a One World Economic System. The end result is the  merging of all Religions controlled in the end by Rome. Pray that is not the case. But it is all laid out in the Book of Revelation. God Bless America! good Subject Matter!

[Eric Barnes]

That a specific religion is somehow attached to a specific political party makes absolutely no sense to me. It seems irrational.  As a youngster, our large family moved a lot.  I never knew why, just went along with the family.  I can't recall how many grade schools I attended.  Church attendance was whichever was closest. My parents sent us to whichever church/Sunday school was the most convenient to our then home.  I've celebrated just about everything in all the major religions.  Jews were welcomed into our home and what few Blacks we met were treated with the same respect...or else!  My father was quite strict about that and he had a heavy hand when it came to spanking!  (To be avoided at all costs! <g>)  In one of my high schools, 92% Jewish, I sang in the local Temple on Saturdays (in Hebrew) and an Episcopalian church on Sunday.  "God" did not see fit to punish me for either one.

Currently, I cannot grasp the amount of hatred and violence spewed out by the Democrats...as it hardly seems "democratic" as I understand the word.  That there are so many versions of religion, each claiming to be the "right" one, I can't even begin to understand them all.  I never could.  I doubt I ever will.

[Patricia Gillenwater]

A great insight into a gents transition from indoctrination to freedom of thought guess it is appropriate to say he finally saw the light.

I hold the hope, yes an emotion,, that the deeds being carried out by the political party of hate [democrat] will lead to ever more #walkaways.

[Vince Ansel]

For purposes of this article, the title "From Darkness into the Light" was meant as a metaphor and was not crafted with a religious perspective in mind. Sorry about any confusion.