Beaufort County Council candidate Cynthia Bensch in her Sept. 7 letter "GOP right to stand up for founding ideals" poses questions for us she thinks deserve unqualified, undisputed, yes or no answers.

Example: "Does anyone believe ... Obama will stand with Israel?" Against whom? In what cause? She begs such questions. People who study the art of argument call her rhetorical game "abusive." Example: "Don't you think she aids the forces of benightedness with her absurd questions. Yes or no?"

Even when not asking direct questions, she is abusive. "Obama's ideology to remove God from every public forum in America is in complete contradiction to our and our Founding Fathers' ideology." That would be the Obama who insisted on proclaiming a National Day of Prayer after a federal judge had ruled such proclamations unconstitutional, eloquently observing, "The same law that prohibits the government from declaring a National Day of Prayer also prohibits it from declaring a National Day of Blasphemy."

And then there is the unargued, rudely framed dictum: "The minority atheists-socialists in America must tolerate the core beliefs of the majority of Americans, or they have the freedom to leave." Why do those here who lack the traditional Southern politesse love the idea of "my way or the highway?"

We're even served a helping of veiled bigotry: "tolerant of the whims of every perverse mind ... Compassion does not need legalization; it needs education." Take that you lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, et al., who naturally form part of the human spectrum.

She would thus seem to have a matte black mind -- totally unreflective.

David Peterson

Port Royal