LETTERS: Trump the modern-day, truth-telling court jester
Has Donald Trump become America's Jester? In medieval times, the court jester was an established institution. The jester, often referred to as the fool, was exempt from the niceties of the court and could speak the truth without fear of punishment. In today's parlance, he could tell it like it is, regardless of the consequences.
The March 1928 issue of Harper's Magazine included an article by Albert Jay Nock entitled, "The King's Jester: Modern Style," in which he wrote about the court jester. "This functionary's job required him not only to be entertaining, but also realistic: in fact, his success at entertainment was pretty strictly conditioned by his sense of reality. All the other court functionaries cooked up the king's facts for him before delivery; the jester delivered them raw."
Mr. Nock went on: "He always saw people as pretty much their natural selves. Thus he gravitated into the confidence of the general run of folks and learned what they were thinking about. This was likely to make him — and often did make him — a good interpreter of the popular mind. He spoke with the people's voice and in the tone of popular opinion and judgment."
Love him or hate him, The Donald is sending politicians a message that might be originating in the heartland of our great country. I hope those politicians are listening.
Al Marden
Henderson
Christians and sinners
Some Christian merchants say they cannot provide services to homosexuals because the Bible condemns homosexuality and it would violate their religious beliefs to serve gay couples. However, the Bible contains more than 600 commandments/prohibitions, and the Bible does not indicate that any one commandment is more important than any other.
It is a basic tenet of Christianity that all humans are sinners (everyone violates some commandments). Therefore, if it would be a sin to serve a sinner, then these merchants must deny their services to all people, because it is a certainty that all their customers must be sinners. If these merchants decide to serve all sinners except gays, then they are discriminating based on the type of sin. This is not authorized by the Bible. This kind of discrimination can be based only on personal prejudice, not on religious principles found in the Bible.
Joseph F. Boetcher
Las Vegas
Iran negotiations
I was amazed to hear from Secretary of State John Kerry that unless the U.S. and others on our side of the negotiating table gave in to Iranian demands in the nuclear talks, the only alternative would be war ("Kerry: No viable alternative to accord," July 20 Review-Journal). The implication seemed to be that in the event of war, we had more to lose than Iran — even though war in this case would not require ground troops on our part and any battles would be fought entirely on (actually, over) Iranian soil.
In Mr. Kerry's view, the U.S. and Europe were the weaker party, and Iran held most of the high cards. My belief is that the Iranians correctly read that we were much more desperate than they were to get something — almost anything — out of these discussions, and they negotiated accordingly. That's what you do when you have your opponents outclassed.
Stewart Blumenfeld
Las Vegas
Biased commentary
The July 19 Viewpoints section amazed me. The Review-Journal published two hysterical commentaries by well-known Israel lovers Shelley Berkley ("No trust, no verification") and Charles Krauthammer ("Iran agreement gets even worse"), even though neither one has likely read the entire 150-page agreement. When the Israeli prime minister barks, both of these two run to fetch his slippers.
Please, couldn't you at least give your readers one article or column that conveys the other side of the story?
Tom Johnson
Las Vegas
