LETTERS: BIPARTISANSHIP MEANS SLAVERY FOR DEMOCRATS

To the editor:

Republican politicians and conservative pundits have become vocal in their appeals to senators and representatives to end the gridlock that has characterized recent years within the federal legislative bodies and, instead, to work toward bipartisanship in order that the people's business can go forward expeditiously.

This appeal reminds me of a passage from the Bible in which God gives this advice to his chosen people: "When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if its answer to you is peace and it opens [itself] to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; and when the Lord your God gives it into your hand you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and its little ones, the cattle, and everything else in the city, all its spoils, you shall take as booty for yourselves, and you shall enjoy the spoils of your enemies." (Deuteronomy 20:10-14)

To offer a city peace should mean that the people from your city and the people from that city agree to live without fighting one another. However, the word "peace" as defined in the above passage actually means that the people of the other city agree to become your slaves and do your bidding. In like manner, all those Republicans who worked tirelessly to produce gridlock when President Clinton was in office now speak the words of peace, but what they really mean by bipartisanship is for the Democrats from the House and Senate to become, in effect, slaves to them and the policies of President George W. Bush.

JOHN C. BIERK

Cape Girardeau

Editor's note: The italicized words in the letter above were inadvertently omitted in the version that was published in Wednesday's paper. The entire letter is being reprinted.