Letter writer: Are we really ‘free’ in North Carolina?  

Graphic by Lori Deaton

Are we really “free” in North Carolina?  Do we have the right priorities?  You tell me:

The state Republicans, smacked by a Republican Supreme Court over the so-called “marriage amendment,” now claim where transgendered citizens pee is our most important issue. Now-former state Sen. Tom Apodaca pushed legislation that even strong Republican and Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski called “embarrassing.”  (“Embarrassing” is a proper legacy for Apodaca.)  We lost business and the NBA All-Star Game. They’re risking Donald Trump losing this state over this?!

Independents now outnumber Republicans in Henderson County (29 percent statewide), but have unfair obstacles to run for office. The Green Party couldn’t get nearly 90,000 signatures to be on the presidential ballot. (In South Carolina they’d “only” need 5,000 signatures.) Why can’t we just pay the entry fee and we’re on the ballot?

North Carolina has 10 million people and three state mental hospitals. In a “Christian” state.  Think about that.

Overwhelmingly, people now support medical cannabis, which could help some cases of mental illness. It’s hard to find any state senator supporting it. That’s how much Big Tobacco, Big Alcohol, Big Pharma and the for-profit prison industry control us.

We have 301 miles of beaches in North Carolina and God knows how much public parkland.  None that could be used for clothing-optional recreation, despite polls with overwhelming support.  “Progressive” Asheville doesn’t have a nudist resort? Seriously? Teddy Roosevelt (a skinny-dipping Republican) would today be arrested skinny-dipping in waters he helped preserve!

I’m an open nudist-rights advocate. Modeled for figure drawing for six years. You taxpayers paid when I modeled for college art classes (thank you). You “Peeping Apodacas” out there can find my quite nude work on my Twitter @DennisTheNudist. You’d be amazed how many conservatives are nudists. Why can’t I hike naturally in designated spaces that I partially own, and must go to a nudist resort out of state and pay to be naked?

Your most important right is running for office. When will other nudists exercise that right?  Why are we allowing “textiles” to determine our rights?

North Carolina has a 29.7 percent obesity rate, with 16.6 percent of high schoolers obese (stateofobesity.org). Ninety-nine percent chance they’re obese their whole lives. Yet my district replaced an obese state senator with a McDonald’s owner!

Because other nations are worse doesn’t mean we’re “free.” The most tolerable of injustice is still tyranny! But that’s what happens when we don’t rise up across the spectrum and say “enough!”

So the assault on our liberties will continue until morale improves.

— Dennis Justice
Fletcher

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10 thoughts on “Letter writer: Are we really ‘free’ in North Carolina?  

  1. The Real World

    Is that you, boatrocker?

    If not, it’s your twin bro …. maybe separated at birth. Ask your Mom.

    • boatrocker

      Wow, bringing Mom into it. Classy.
      I post under this name exclusively.

      I suppose the first comment I wrote wasn’t posted as it dealt with your mom as a response to a comment about mine. Funny how that works.

  2. val

    The BIG RED HYPOCRISY; All of these Red (Keep Government OUT) states; Except out of the womb, the bedroom, the garden, etc etc…. all in the name of RELIGION; ignorant of the fact that FREEDOM OF RELIGION; is to include FREEDOM FROM RELIGION!! How can we be free; when people can ban together to vote into law their religious beliefs; hence oppressing (bound to law) those who don’t hold the same beliefs?
    We are NOT FREE; by any stretch of the imagination!

    • Lulz

      LOL, how can we be free when those on the government payrolls can ban together to EXTORT more money from those that work? And even worse, call them names and label them with hateful terms if they demand answers as to where their money is going lulz. Or even worse, put their country first because they kinda get that an open border along with a welfare state equals 3rd world and bankruptcy. Or that country managers that in essence get 35,000 pay raises in one year is ridiculous. Especially in an area where the average wage is about half that for the MAJORITY. But that’s OK because as long as mouthpieces like you exist, the real issues can be swept under and even ignored. After all, bathroom laws are more important LOL.

  3. ApePeeD

    Nudism is still taboo in the USA, because of its Puritan heritage. The USA has become way more relaxed since the days of “a glimpse of stocking was something shocking”, but we have a long way to go to European-level bare-breasted primetime TV ads for socks and underwear.

    • Phil Williams

      I remember being shocked in the early 80’s in Germany by a shampoo ad that started out with a girl washing her hair – and as she held up the shampoo bottle and made her spiel for the product, the camera backed up to show her bare breasts! You could always tell the American GIs where there was nude bathing going on – we were the ones with funny hair cuts and our mouths hanging open….

    • boatrocker

      For being downtown a few years ago during one of those ‘even though it’s legal to show the girls in NC we’re going to have a protest for it anyway’ protests, I remember thinking ‘hmmmm, if only the ones that I wanted to take their shirts off would do it’. Nudism- same idea.

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