Here we go again with another rant from Ms. Sheppard. Like her previous tirade there is little truth or fact in this bluster.

Ms. Sheppard may wish to take my opinions as fact that is her prerogative. My opinions are based on experience along with all the evidence and facts I can find.

When it comes to the Bible I am a literalist; the Bible says what it says! Ms. Sheppard has yet to provide anything that contradicts my references from the Bible. She brought up Romans 13 about our requirements to follow our government’s laws and authority. Nowhere in Romans 13 does it require us to abandon our personal responsibilities to the government.

At no time have I ever suggested that we abandon the poor and needy. Ms. Sheppard and I have a difference of opinion as to what the Bible says. Jesus tells us in Luke 3:11, Luke 12:33, Luke 19:8, Matthew 19:21, and Tobit 4:7 that it is a personal responsibility. Jesus also guides us in the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37. Ms. Sheppard wants to transfer her personal responsibility to the government which in my opinion is contradictory to the Bible and un-Christian!

Ms. Sheppard claims that the United States is a socialist democracy. From my research the USA is not in that category today. The Liberal/Progressive left wants to transition the USA to a socialist democracy and they have made good progress in trying to do so. After eight years of a far left liberal/progressive policy the people rebelled against them and elected a Populist who is quickly changing the direction in spite of the obstructionist Democratic Party with its liberal/progressives and far left liberal/progressives.

Yes, I complain about Marxism, Socialism, public dependence (assistance) and anything that takes excessive money from the population to fund programs for the able bodied in order to keep them dependent on the government and as some have said is today’s version of slavery (wealth redistribution/Marxism)!

Ms. Sheppard wants the USA to become a socialist democracy. She must remember that socialist democracy, socialism, and liberalism/progressivism all are rooted in communism (Marxism)

If I wanted to avail myself of all the entitlement programs that Ms. Sheppard rants about; I could have. My life started as the son of a sharecropper. The sharecropper’s life was very poor with elements of slavery! But I chose self-reliance rather than dependency!

TRICARE is a benefit plan health insurance program. To be qualified for TRICARE you must be active military or retired military.

You need to just look at the consistent generation to generation using the welfare system. They needed a helping hand to lift them out of poverty and improve their lives. They got a steady stream of government assistance keeping them at their poverty existence which is what Ms. Sheppard appears to want.

Ray Shamlin

Rocky Mount