To the editor: Sen. Clarkson votes against Vermonters
The Chester Telegraph | Jul 01, 2020 | Comments 3
In a recent opinion piece, Windsor County state Sen. Alison Clarkson, asks, “What kind of America do we want to be?” It is an important question. The causes that Sen. Clarkson supports and how she votes is not the America or Vermont that I envision. It is not an America of compassion, liberty or equality.
Clarkson is a strident advocate of abortion and Planned Parenthood. The abortion rate for black women is five times more than white women. Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, over 19 million defenseless black babies have lost to abortion. This is due to aggressive marketing of abortion in the black community. This is an act of genocide on the black community.
Abortion has ripped apart the fabric of these communities. Similarly in Vermont, 1,300 unborn babies are lost to abortion every year at the same time our school population is in rapid decline. The effect of this on our small towns has been devastating.
Clarkson’s voting record in both the Vermont House and Senate is equally revealing. She was instrumental in the creation, passage and enforcement of Act 46 yet she gets the full endorsement of the Vermont NEA teachers Union. She is dedicated to the destruction of small rural schools. She is one of the most vocal opponents of school choice in Vermont while she chooses to send her own kids to the elite private Groton prep school in Massachusetts. See this video. The tuition at that school is $58,260 per year. Hard for any Vermonter of any color to afford such privilege.
Since 2013, Clarkson has voted to raise fees and taxes on Vermonters by an astronomical amount of $303.5 million. In February 2015, Clarkson was shameless in calling for a pay increase for herself of $17 per hour for services done for constituents when the legislature is not in session. Maybe Clarkson can afford these kinds of taxes, but the majority of people in Vermont cannot. I have watched as my friends and neighbors who have lived in Vermont for generations have left the state to escape the heavy burden of her voting record.
In February of 2015, Clarkson also co-sponsored House Bill 57. This bill gives the state the right to steal your body. Under this bill, “the state will start harvesting your body parts for its use. Although presumed to be altruistic, it is moneytruistic,” according to a letter to the editor in that same year. “This law is so bad on so many levels there is not time or space to decry how really bad it is,” the letter states.
Anyone in Vermont who has a heart is disgusted by what happened to George Floyd. We all got to see the video. The act was one cold-blooded murder. Under the law justice must and will be served.
I question the sincerity of Sen. Clarkson’s condemnation of George Floyd’s murder and call for racial equity while at the same time her voting record and actions tell such a different story. Sen. Clarkson, you live in the upper-crust gentrified village of Woodstock. You are only a few miles from the mobile homes, shacks and small homes of most of your lower-income constituents. It’s nice that you claim to care so much about American citizens in far away cities from your tidy, affluent crime-free neighborhood. It would be nicer if spent some time understanding the struggles of your own constituents.
Sincerely,
Stu Lindberg
Cavendish
Filed Under: Commentary • Letters to the Editor
When I was out on the campaign trail running for VT legislature in 2016 my platform was repealing Act 46, replacing Act 68, Vermont’s education funding law, returning governance to local democratically elected school boards, stopping the dumping of raw sewage into Vermont’s waterways and fixing the roadways.
I was not prepared for defending myself against allegations of racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia while I went door to door campaigning as a Republican. I was not prepared for defending candidate Trump, who had nothing to do with the issues I was trying to address. I was also not prepared for the harassment of my oldest daughter at GMUHS because her father was a Republican candidate for the legislature. I was not prepared for the tires on my car being slashed while going door to door in Weathersfield or the hysterical laughing of the Weathersfield Vermont Democrats when I publicly confronted them about the damage done to my car.
The silver lining of my run for office was that I was compelled to gain an understanding of race relations in the United States. With the power of social media I started to follow the black community. What I learned is that this community is made up of individuals, like all humans, extremely diverse in opinion. The Democrat Party does not speak for the black community. The Republican party does not speak for the white community. We all speak for ourselves and we make voluntary associations on our beliefs not our color.
I suppose I should thank the Vermont Democrats for the hatred and ridicule they directed at me. If not for this I may never have made friends with so many great Ameeicans who have a different skin color than my own. I would never have learned how similar the challenges we share by simply being human. I never would have understood the tragedy of so many communities losing their children to abortion.
In 2016 I was told by white liberals that since I was a white male I should shut up about abortion and race relations. As I have stated I was not prepared to debate any of this. In 2020 I am being told by white leftists that white silence is white complicity in the murder of black people. It appears I have permission to speak and I am prepared.
So grateful to live in a state and a part of the country where we respect the rights of women to control their own bodies and make their own reproductive decisions. In this, the 100th anniversary of women fighting for and finally receiving the constitutional right to vote, I hope everyone remembers to fight for their rights or they can be lost to the ugly minority that this letter represents.
Mr. Lindberg invokes a false narrative to support his criticism of Senator Clarkson. He states that there is a high abortion rate within the black community because of the “aggressive marketing” of abortion to black women, inferring a connection to the comprehensive health services provided by Planned Parenthood and by extension, the Senator’s support of that organization. The notion of aggressive marketing of abortion is simply unsupported by the facts despite being a common trope repeated by those pushing to defund reproductive services as well as some anti-abortion religious groups. Studies published in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health in 2007 and in Contraception in 2008 identified the reasons for higher abortion rates in minority communities. Those reasons include: less access to prescription contraceptives, because of low income and lack of insurance coverage, as well as poor access to general health care and gynecological services. It is also important to note that the number of abortions performed in the US is actually at its lowest since Roe. V. Wade. While higher in black and Hispanic populations, primarily for economic reasons, abortion rates are declining there as well, principally because of health care services provided by organizations like Planned Parenthood and increased access to healthcare in general as a consequence of the Affordable Care Act. Using the false claim of “aggressive abortion marketing” diminishes any legitimate criticism Mr. Lindberg may offer about Senator Clarkson’s record, including her support for critically important reproductive health services.