(Editor’s note: this column is in response to Anastasia Spytsya’s previous column)

Dear Ms. Spytsya;

Thank you for your interest in my columns.

Furthermore, I would like to thank you for taking the time to sit down and express your views with logic and reason. As we both know, your Republican friends have not been doing that in recent months.

In fact, they would much rather spend their time spreading ridiculous lies about health care reform on Facebook and making tea party signs depicting our president as an infamous Nazi leader.

So, to answer your question, my reason for writing was an attempt to raise awareness about the rise in the influence of radical conservatism, which is heavily promoted by the likes of Glenn Beck and Fox News.

It is shameful that more people didn’t pay attention to the Department of Homeland Security’s April report detailing the rise of right-wing extremism in our nation. Maybe if more people took it seriously, that security guard at the Holocaust museum might still be with us today.

Playing with people’s emotions is a dangerous game. I hear from people who honestly believe socialism is taking over and that our great nation is coming to an end. It’s often said that the most dangerous man is the one who has nothing to lose, and a frighteningly large amount of people believe they are about to lose it all.

I am sorry you did not understand my main point. Perhaps I should write more clearly in the future. But I will admit that I laugh at some of the interpretations my columns get.

In all honesty, I laughed out loud as I read your line, “But Republicans, being in a super-minority, stand up for their beliefs and act.” In time, you will realize why Americans refer to the Republican Party as the party of “no.”

No Republican attempt has been made at trying to sit down and negotiate on health care reform. Considering Republicans don’t care if people can afford health care, maybe doing nothing is your definition of “acting.”

I am well aware that Democrats control our government. The fact is, health care reform would have passed by now if your party had not set out on a public relations mission to convince Americans that we are going to kill grandma in some sort of “elderly genocide.”

I admit that the economy has not improved as fast as we all hoped. But I never claimed that President Barack Obama could fix all of President George W. Bush’s mistakes in a year. In fact, Republicans tried blaming Obama for the bad economy and outrageous spending the second week he was in office.

Don’t forget, Ms. Spytsya, that Bush signed the $700 billon bank bailout, in case you still feel the need to criticize the Democrats for trying to save our economy. But I find it funny that you and other Republicans were all of a sudden concerned about the economy after Inauguration Day.

As someone who has lived in this country for the past eight years, I have seen how the Republicans work and know extensively about their platform.

I must point out, however, a fact error in your column. You implied that President Obama took advice from Sen. John McCain by adding more troops to Afghanistan. This was always the Obama administration’s plan: To focus more on Afghanistan while making Iraqis more independent.

Given the circumstances that were inherited from the previous administration, pulling out of Iraq right now doesn’t seem like a rational plan (even though the majority of the Iraqi people, the American people and the Obama administration support that idea).

But to claim that this one point was the thing that won Sarah Palin the vice presidential debate (as you attempted to do) is completely absurd. It just goes to show that many Republicans are living in a fantasy world.

As for your invitation to the College Republican meeting: Thanks, but no thanks. Perhaps when hell freezes over. As for now, I am a Democrat, and damn proud of it.

Frank Yonkof is a sophomore newspaper journalism major and columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].