Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Here we go again. In the Sept. 20 opinion pages, letters from Russell Wuestefeld ("The end of our country") and Kendall Sentz ("Two visions for America") illustrate the great divide in our people. Both, I believe, served their country, and I thank them for that. Where I question their objectivity is how they view the government services/programs they have utilized versus those they find detrimental to America.

Assuming they both were career military (Facebooked them), they may both have received and continue to get government paychecks, would they have supported downsizing the military and civil service that supports them? How about cutting the hundreds of billions spent off books supporting our troops in the Middle East? Today would they close the VA? The VA is, by definition, the closest thing to socialism in the U.S., even after the full implementation of Obamacare. Owned by, regulated by, and workers employed by the government equals socialism. Would they begrudge our fellow veterans their benefits?

They would argue Social Security and Medicare are socialism, not insurance programs used by those who paid the bill now expecting the product. Quite often, I see in this paper and others people who without our government’s jobs, services and others’ money would not be comfortable enough to complain. Virginia receives about $6,000 per capita more than we pay in federal revenues; only Alaska, Mississippi and New Mexico get more. Virginia’s economy would collapse without it.

Yes, America is in a fiscal mess. Yes, both parties need to reassess. And most importantly, until we stop whining about who is most wrong and start trying to fix it together, we can only move backward, not forward. Gentlemen, we are free, we are equal and the end is not near.

S.J. Mehaffey

Gloucester, Va.