GOP governors abandon values
It is incredulous that some GOP governors are not standing in unison with the official GOP platform on Obamacare (“GOP governors: Obamacare staying,” News, Oct. 21). They are doing our citizens a disservice by attempting to subvert the GOP opposition by allowing for Medicaid expansion under what most opponents call the Unaffordable Healthcare Act. It appears to a lot of conservative Republican voters that the GOP elite, with just a few exceptions, have abandoned certain core values and have attempted to morph the party into a watered-down version of the present-day Democrat Party.
If this is their agenda, and there is no discernable difference between the two major parties, their agenda will categorically fail, and the Republican Party will be relegated to that of an also-ran party. With this failure, and with both the Republican and Democratic parties’ agenda of manipulating elections through laws making it difficult for third parties to compete, we will be forced against our will into a one-party nation — which unfortunately were policies of the Cold War nations we fought against for the past 50 years.
J.A. JERNIGAN, ATLANTA
We shouldn’t forget War of 1812
It is unfortunate that what some scholars consider the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the city of Atlanta and also of Canada, Mexico and the United States as nations has gone overlooked: the War of 1812. Our nation’s national anthem, flag, Uncle Sam character, two presidencies, the Smithsonian Institution and much more goes back to that unfortunate and complicated conflict. Our city’s origins have been credited to the establishment of Fort Standing Peachtree by then-Lt. George R. Gilmer during that war.
Gilmer later wrote that his conflicted and complicated views of race originated in part during his time there and influenced his actions as governor on the eve of the removals of the Cherokee and Creek Indians in the 1820s. Gilmer would eventually write, in metaphor, that character has nothing to do with race in his parable of Austin Dabney, the son of a slave and a white woman. That patriot of the American Revolution received a wound that crippled him for life. A white family saved him, and he befriended them for life. Dabney is buried in nearby Zebulon next to the son of his white benefactors. The War of 1812 should at the least be remembered, but notably here in Atlanta.
ROBERT S. DAVIS, HANCEVILLE, ALA.
