I’m unsure if the paper will continue printing letters, and, regardless, the practice appears more pointless with each passing day as people don’t read anymore. I’m not even sure if this one will be published, but I write anyway just to get the thoughts out and cleanse my soul.

The last edition of the paper contained letters from two people I know well and know to be smart and intelligent people. Both were filled with suppositions that are diametrically opposed to what I consider to be facts. I recognize most of their concepts from what I hear from the legacy news and leftist politicians.

I am guessing that I, myself, have written letters in the past filled with ideas that both of them found to be totally wrong, based on their experience and knowledge. And this is the issue: We’re no longer debating ideas based on facts. We’re challenging each other based on a totally different “set of facts.” How can we possibly have a useful debate when we can’t even agree with what the facts are to start?

The corruption of the legacy media is largely to blame. Where Virginia could believe that if something were written in

that it must be true, we can no longer believe anything written in The New York Times, Time magazine, or various other sources to be true. Granted, Ms. Francis Church lied to Virginia in her response. Perhaps the media have never been reliable.

Someone (I’m not sure who) likened media like Fox News and CNN to Sunday wrestling shows designed to work people up into a frenzy so that they would pay for the main events. Politics today has become this. We all get stirred up by our chosen outlets, repeat what is said as gospel, then end friendships and ruin family traditions (and start civil wars, perhaps) because it is so important for our team to win, win, win.

Every time my team has won, the debt has continued to go up, regulations and restrictions on liberty have grown, and it has gotten just a little harder to enjoy life. Nothing changes. They always need more control, more people from their team to make changes. Truth is, they just want to stay in power and be invited to the parties so they can drink and cheat on their wives with interns. Same as the other team.

I close with this: We have tens of thousands of people in this country who are better than the 500 or so we have representing us in Washington. We need to all stop sending the same people back and instead start putting these people in office with the stated objective to reduce Federal Government power as much as possible and return it to the people. But only for a term or two. Like the Ring to Control Them All, holding that much power corrupts and no one can stay for long without becoming what we need to remove.

Joseph Sheeley Tullahoma