Readers React: A cheap shot at Republicans

Re “Hate without end,” Opinion, April 17

The groups named by Peter Gottschalk as being responsible for widespread hate in this century are “right-wing politicians, conservative donors and professional Islamophobes.” He does not have to come right out and say “Republicans” because people have been primed by the media to associate these words with the GOP.

Gottschalk gives a history of the Ku Klux Klan. He omits the fact that the Republican Party since the time of Abraham Lincoln has championed civil rights, while the Democratic Party prior to the 1960s — when it was forced to accept civil rights — has a dismal history in comparison.

Not only were Southern Democrats crucial to the formation of the early KKK, but the late Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd served as a leader of his chapter for many years before his entry into national politics.

Gottschalk’s piece is a cheap shot at the Republican Party.

Joan Smith

Northridge

Hate, intolerance, greed, envy, suspicion, pride, sense of inferiority and sense of superiority are bundled together in the intolerance of other cultures and other religions. It can take place within a community, in a nation or between nations.

Ignorance is usually cited as a major factor, but I have seen hatred in college-educated men and women as well as the un-

educated and the unwashed. It takes place in democracies as well as autocracies. National and international leaders can be just as intolerant and ignorant as the masses — in fact, they are usually leading the masses in their various pet hatreds.

It has been so ever since man developed communities. I doubt it will ever end. Hatred may very well be ingrained within our DNA, either by God’s design or evolution’s. Take your pick; it makes no difference.

Gene Vitamanti

Murrieta

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