A Democracy?

We were surprised to read in the Reformed Presbyterian Witness (May issue, De Regno Christi) that “the United States and Canada are commonly called democracies, or, more precisely, republics.” Our queen would not be amused.

—Jared Strydhorst, Jacob Zwiers Ottawa, Ont.

An Ongoing Struggle

I was disappointed with Christian Adjemian’s letter to the editor in the May Witness. Personally, I celebrate the fact that the Witness has correctly pointed out that the failure of Americans to be more concerned about moral and ethical decline over the past few decades has been the root of many other national problems.

At the time of the decision to invade Iraq, I believe the president made up his mind based on the best available intelligence information. I would point out that good things have come about for the Iraqi people as a result of the U.S. overthrowing a murderous, Islamo-fascist dictator like Saddam Hussein. The persistence of internal and external problems involving Islamic terrorists should not be blamed on the president. They are an inevitable part of the ongoing struggle between religious fascism and democracy worldwide.

I fear that many of us have forgotten or ignored the prudent lessons learned in the past, often through mass bloodshed and widespread suffering during wartime. Nazi Germany was once “a sovereign nation” which posed no viable threat to Europe or to the world. When Hitler came to power on Jan. 30, 1933 , Germany was not capable of inflicting any real harm on the free world. No one living then would have thought that by Apr. 30, 1945 (the day of Hitler’s cowardly suicide in the Fuhrer Bunker), 50 million people would be dead, including 6 million Jews who were systematically exterminated by the Nazis.

—Harlan R. Urwiler Overland Park, Kan.