This letter is response to Ms. Patsy Sheppard’s letter, published on Nov. 14.

Though I enjoyed Ms. Sheppard’s letter, in my opinion it was a tirade of a Progressive.

Like all Progressives who practice Saul Alinsky’s techniques; she was attacking the messenger rather than giving a well based and supported opinion in rebuttal. Not only was she attacking the messenger, in my opinion she was spinning a web of deceit.

No one can claim firsthand knowledge of the Founding Fathers unless they were there at the time. I am only 74 years old so I could not have been there at the time they were developing and wrote our Constitution. What I can do, and what anyone can do, is research the Founding Fathers and express an opinion on that research — which is what I have done and what I always do.

Our Founding Fathers were a diverse group. There were Christians and non-Christians in the group. Most were Masons, whose beliefs are based on Biblical Teaching or Teachings (whichever you prefer). They did not use just one part or one phrase from the Bible; they used the entire Bible and its teachings to base our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence upon. She was spinning again to claim otherwise.

According to Biblical Teachings, it is not the responsibility of the government to care for the poor and needy. It is the individual’s responsibility to care for the needy and poor. Nowhere in the Bible can you find directions for you to sell everything you have and give it to the government to care for the needy and poor. But you can find on several occasions instructions for you to sell everything you have and give it to the needy and poor.

Based on her interpretation of Romans 13, governments such as Hitler’s Third Reich, Pol Pot Laotian communist government, Italy’s Mussolini’s Fascist government, the USSR’s communist government, North Korea’s communist government, Cuba’s communist government, China’s communist government, and Vietnam’s communist government are all made by God. I would beg to differ.

When it comes to Medicare, it is only a government subsidized program because it has been so mismanaged since its implementation in 1966. I will never see benefits equal to the invested value of the payments that I and my employers have paid into the Medicare system. The calculation of the invested value of payments made by you and your employer can be done by using the average IRS interest rate of 7.75 percent per year. Each of us would have been better off to have opted out of Medicare and invested the money ourselves — at least then we could control the fraud and abuse that is rampant in today’s Medicare System.

I will not even go into the pitfalls of the Affordable Care Act and God help us if we ever go to a single-payer system. But I will say this: before the ACA, everyone who needed medical care got medical care if they asked for it.

Ray Shamlin

Rocky Mount