SLO County Republicans are standing against hate. We always have

Once again, Tom Fulks has wrapped himself in self-righteous indignation, spewing venom against Republicans in general but especially those who self-identify as conservatives. In “standing against hate” as he describes it in his Sunday commentary, he condemned anyone from the political opposition who failed to sufficiently display appropriate public horror and disapproval of the latest demonstration by Klansmen and Nazis. He accuses Republicans of being indifferent and silent toward the evil among us because he hasn’t noticed our presence.

We were there, Mr. Fulks, at the vigil, in print, on the radio, but you weren’t listening. Members of the Republican Central Committee were present as were others. They didn’t announce their presence, as it wasn’t about them, but the victims.

Your fellow travelers have also made it quite unwelcome for conservatives to exercise either their First Amendment rights or make public pronouncements of their presence. The newest version of the Nazi Party of America, the “antifa,” black-clad, masked cowards have literally physically attacked anyone who dared represent an opinion contrary to what they deem politically acceptable. The latest episode occurred last weekend in Berkeley as a peaceful group of genuine conservatives attempted to hold a free-speech rally, only to be set upon by club-wielding, black-clad thugs; the police once again watched, but did little to protect them.

As for publicly denouncing the Nazis, the Klan and your new heroes, the antifa terrorists, the phone lines on KPRL’s Sound-Off program, which I host on Fridays, lit up and “melted down” in outrage. Conservatives are talking, just not to you. They got tired of reading your tirades and stopped reading The Tribune; most don’t read it at all, including a majority of elected officials. They felt they weren’t given a fair hearing and simply turned to other sources of news. You personally contributed a great deal to that feeling, just as your article on Sunday again validated their animosity toward the paper.

As for the Klan and their ilk, don’t you find it hypocritical to be critical of the political party that led the fight against slavery (Republicans) only to join the political party that founded the Klan? Yes, you, Mr. Fulks, are a member of the political party (Democrats) that was the genesis of the Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist group founded to restore white supremacy in the post-Civil War South. It initiated lynchings, mass terror, disarmed newly freed slaves with the first gun control laws and established serfdom in the South via “Jim Crow” laws.