The opinion piece by Dan McLaughlin in The Post-Journal (Oct. 24, 2020) was so one-sided as to be laughable. The piece was full of distortions and outright lies, innuendoes and smears. It was obviously intended to scare the heebie jeebies out of you:( “Dems, Your Leaders are Radicals”) Let’s look at some of these distortions:

To suggest that George Floyd’s death was because of his overdosing on drugs is a lie. The forensic evidence, though indicating that Floyd indeed had fentanyl intoxication and had recently used methamphetamine, as well as having an underlying heart condition, shows his death as homicide. The full autopsy report by the Hennepin Medical Examiner listed the cause of death as “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression” and that the manner of death was homicide.”

The “radicals on the left” as McLaughlin puts it were not “distorting” the forensic evidence, nor were they distorting the facts that the percentage of blacks killed by police is 2.5 times that of whites. Considering the rates per population, not just by raw numbers, is the honest way to state the facts. The rates of fatal police shootings per million , by ethnicity as published by Statista Research Department, October 5, 2020, are 32 Blacks compared to 13 whites killed.

Of course, since whites outnumber blacks, you would expect more whites than blacks killed, but McLaughlin fails to mention that.

McLaughlin also tries to delegitimize the mostly peaceful Black Lives Matter protests by focusing on the rioting and violence, which many in the BLM movement tried to stop. As a matter of fact , some people went out of their way to clean up the damage done by rioters. According to a report by a non-profit group that researches political violence throughout the world (The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project), more than 93% of Black Lives Matter protests have been peaceful, but McLaughlin never mentions that.

The most egregious of McLaughlin’s accusations is that of calling most Democrats “socialists.” That has been the buzzword of the day with right wingers slinging that word around like it’s mud without seemingly to understand its meaning. ( A disclaimer: my cat is a Socialist. She waits for handouts and treats from me.)

And, sure, in the U.S., though we have capitalism, we also have socialism..

We have pubic schools supported by taxpayers, we have Social Security, we have Medicare and we have veteran’s health care; we have a Post Office, and we have child labor laws and minimum wage laws.There are agriculture and energy subsidies as well — all of them (gulp!) socialist!

Of course, one kind of socialism that’s never mentioned by those that consider it a dirty word is socialism for the rich. The super wealthy get government handouts that most of you reading this would never get. Sorry!

Take, for example, The Yacht Tax Deduction .

It’s a doozie, and it’s perfectly legal!

If you play it right, you can deduct the purchase price, insurance, maintenance and slip fees from your income tax! Nice, eh?

Now , that is a really super government handout for the super rich! And we silly taxpayers are paying for it!

But, hey, perhaps that’s one socialist program that McLaughlin would approve of.

Renate Bob is a Jamestown resident.