Letter to the Poughkeepsie Journal - Sent Jan. 15, 2018

By Bill Kriebel

Recently, Gannett Corp., which owns the Poughkeepsie Journal, fired Burlington (Vermont) Free Press editor Denis Finley for having the audacity to “tweet” an opinion that Vermont adding a “third gender” to drivers licenses isn’t “awesome”. Some time ago, the CEO of Mozilla was forced to resign because he gave some money to a group defending marriage. An engineer for Google was fired for criticizing the company’s “diversity” policies.

It’s a sad state of affairs when a tiny mom and pop bakery can be forced out of business for not baking a “wedding” cake for a same-sex couple who could easily go to another baker for a cake, while huge corporations like Gannett, Google, Mozilla, etc. can ruin the careers of people in their employ for simply airing views the company’s executives don’t want to hear.

The left constantly rails against the power of corporations but is silent when huge corporations crush people for exercising their free speech rights - but only when conservatives are affected. When the NFL corporation briefly contemplated penalizing players for disrespecting our flag, the outcry from the left was deafening. Of course, nothing was done.

Lately, the Journal has been inundated with hateful letters from leftists, some going so far as to call for armed revolution and mass beheadings. It’s getting to the point where it may not be safe for conservatives to go out in public lest they be recognized and set upon by berserk mobs.

What is this country coming to?