Nancy Fairbanks and Maggie Bowman’s “ping-pong match” got my attention when I read Nancy’s rebuttal (Aug. 7) to Maggie’s letter (May 23). In this corner we have Moms For Liberty and in that corner we have the Southern Poverty Law Center.
To get some understanding, I paid a visit to both organizations’ websites and read their “About Us” stuff. I wanted to see what is it that these two organizations “claim” to stand for. As it turns out, both organizations, at least on the surface (and in their own ways), want “good” things to happen.
From my reading of their stated beliefs, goals and objectives, MFL, founded in 2021 in Melbourne, Florida, is dedicated to family, God and country. I would have added fries and a Coke to that order, but let’s not digress. Among other incidentals, they want to get the government’s stinking tentacles out of our homes and our children’s lives, particularly in the realms of education (i.e. teaching impressionable little tykes that being trangender is “normal”). That’s my “Reader’s Digest” version, but I don’t think I missed too much.
SPLC, founded in 1971 in Montgomery, Alabama, is dedicated to eradicating what they consider to be social injustice on every level that it might exist, particularly in the realms of racial injustice (i.e. white supremacy vs. Black oppression). They also want to eliminate poverty and income inequality. In many respects they seem to be up against universal forces (i.e. all men “might” be created equal, but some “are” more equal than others). Again, that’s my view of them in a very tiny nutshell, but I don’t think I missed too much.
Given that their respective mission statements seem to be rooted in “good intentions” (as if that ever stopped anyone from doing horrible things regardless) I asked that final, defining question: What are these two organizations actually DOING that conflicts with their “presumed innocence” (leading these two women to exchange such letters)? Is there a “bad guy/good guy” thing here?
From what I have gleaned from their own websites, both organizations are guilty of “overcorrecting” wrongs, real and perceived, in the past and in the present, while creating all new wrongs in the process, and therein lies the problem. In many ways this resembles a gang warfare of sorts, and because of that I would indict both on charges of bigotry, hate, and aggression. You’d think the American Civil War and slavery never really ended — they simply took different forms, but who’s trying to enslave whom? Or, as the late Rodney King once asked, “Can’t we all just get along?” (Without being forced to get along?) Well, perhaps, and perhaps not — you wanna push it anyway? Well, see where that gets you — right where we are right now.
In closing, I see both of these “special interest groups” (just like many others like them) as the problem. Neither is a solution, and sometimes there simply IS no solution.
Arthur Saginian
Santa Clarita
