Letters to the Editor for Thursday, November 19, 2009

Writer: Quit ragging on LU students
I am not affiliated with Thomas Road Church or Liberty University in any way. I am not even a resident of Lynchburg. But I am greatly offended (and in this society one must not ever be subjected to anything offensive) by the vitriol and hate that being poured into your newspaper’s letters about LU students.

Your writers are taking a group of young people and stereotyping them. They are engaging in name calling, accusing the students of being manipulated and of not having minds of their own and are generally spewing hateful and mean spirited attacks against these young students.

Shame on all of you. You don’t know these kids. How dare you make such broad, sweeping assumptions about anyone?

Would you take any other group and treat them as such? Would you take a school made up primarily of minority students and dare to speak in such a manner about them? Are you upset that Lynchburg College and Randolph College students vote? I think not.

If you are one of the people so angry that LU students dared to exercise their right to vote, and horror of horrors, rode buses to the polls, where was your ire when people were bused to the polls last year to vote in other precincts? If you think that a student who lives in Lynchburg, who studies, works, plays and shops in Lynchburg, does not keep up with and have an interest in local issues, then you are being naïve. They are probably better informed than many of your citizens who have lived in Lynchburg for years.

If you don’t like Thomas Road Baptist Church, don’t attend. If you don’t like Liberty University, don’t enroll. If you don’t like the traffic on Wards Road, don’t go there. But stop the name-calling and the verbal assault on a group of fine young people.

And shame on The News & Advance for continuing to print this bigoted rhetoric. I don’t believe you would accept letters in this vein about any other group. Free speech is one thing, but giving a forum to this continuing, unwarranted denigration of a group of people is unconscionable.

I have bit of advice to all of you who hate LU so much. Every time you have a negative thought about them, try listening to the ca-ching of the Lynchburg cash registers as a means to chase away your negativity. This group has your fair city bustling.
BECKY WUERGLER
Bedford

Veterans’ thanks
On behalf of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9877, I would like to thank the many local citizens who donated money during our recent Veterans Day Poppy Drive at Sam’s Club in Lynchburg.

Your unselfish contributions led to one of our most successful programs and it will assist many veterans within the V.F.W.

I would also like to thank Larry Brooks and Phil Steege who stood in the rain and cold, and to Sam’s Club for allowing them to stand in front of their business on Veterans Day. Thank you for supporting our veterans.
MILTON D. CARSON Jr.
Commander, V.F.W. Post 9877
Madison Heights

Turnaround’s fair play
Now that non-resident college students are allowed to vote in local elections, Rep. Tom Periello, D-Fifth District, should immediately start organizing students at the University of Virginia to vote for him in next year’s congressional elections.

It is probable that a few thousand liberal UVa students from Northern Virginia can easily overwhelm the conservative vote in Southside. With UVa students’ help, Rep. Periello could become a permanent fixture in Congress.

This will certainly upset many of the longtime, ultra-conservative residents of the district who do not like the idea of UVa students dictating election outcomes, but these are the new rules.
JOHN GUTHROW
Lynchburg