To the editor:
We have in our midst a number of people who seem to harbor a perpetual grievance because the world fails to live up to their own high standards. Their views on rights would require that each and every human activity be subject to review on a case-by-case basis by the judgment of some rightthinking person.
They like to mention the Constitution, but I really wonder if they've ever read it and thought about its meaning and origin. They imagine that anyone who can't or won't wave the flag and salute it at the same time must be disloyal. They have a close relationship with misinformation and are experts at scattershot insults. They must spend a lot of time and energy organizing their petty hatreds. Maybe this makes them feel important and supplies them with a sense of purpose.
But they remind me of a toddler on an airliner who is screaming in seat 13B. The difference being that, while the child makes a lot of noise, she doesn't demand to pilot the plane. And the toddler will eventually grow up. All of this inevitably results in a response that can only be called a counterattack and then the cycle repeats. What we all have yet to learn is that before you can try to own someone else you first have to know yourself.
John Rucki
Amsterdam