Editor, Daily Nexus,

It is deeply ironic for Courtney Stevens to claim that the Democratic Party views the American electorate as “ignorant,” when her own column (“Liberty Belle: Democrats Rule in Land of Confusion,” Daily Nexus, Jan. 9) resorts to making simplistic caricatures out of the Democrats’ policy positions. She also assumes that her readers are either too ignorant or too stupid to know better. Even if you ignore her most glaring inconsistency in reasoning – that the Democrats are simultaneously too liberal while being nonideological centrists panderers – the remainder of the column is so rife with logical fallacies and half-truths it would put a Fox News pundit to shame.

First, she points to what she considers to be frivolous regulation of laxative boxes and aerosol cans, and attributes this to the Democrats even though they have been in power for about one week. This is a “guilt by association” logical fallacy that works in two ways – that one instance of seemingly frivolous regulation damns all federal regulations and that the new Democratic majority is automatically responsible for all governmental excess, even though such regulation is put into place by nonpartisan bureaucrats.

Then Stevens makes the point that Democrats simultaneously support protecting our civil liberties while promoting “excessive” gun control and the censorship of the words “Merry Christmas.” The fact is that the last major piece of gun control legislation to pass through Congress was the Brady Bill, which passed with bipartisan support and did such “excessive” things as require a background check for gun purchasers so that firearms don’t get into the hands of felons or the mentally ill. Maybe Stevens, Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson of Fox News are content to live in their alternate universe where the use of “Merry Christmas” is a serious political issue, but those of us in the real world know that the Democratic Party has never and will never have the banning of “Merry Christmas” as a policy position.

Her other claims – that Democrats support illegal immigration and the restriction of fast food – are so off-base that they insult our intelligence. Stevens is right when she says citizens should “make educated, informed decisions with consideration to the wealth of information that they are exposed to.” We’ll start by ignoring her column.