I woke this morning with no thoughts of writing this letter. But then I saw an ad on the internet for a shirt that had printed on it, “I prefer Veterans to Immigrants.”

I will admit to being instantly offended. What in the world has one to do with the other? Let me tell you, this shirt is meant to rankle you. You are supposed to think that if we have immigrants, we are somehow taking something from our veterans. I am a 100% disabled combat veteran and I cannot see what anything my life that would be negatively affected by solving America’s immigrant crisis.

Someone wants you to believe that would happen, however. Someone who is a total bigot. The person or entity that is promoting this idea has an agenda and it is a minority view. I say that as most of us reading this paper are descendants of immigrants!

But you see, the promoter of this shirt needs your money and they need your ire. You should give them neither. You do not view yourself as a bigot, do you? Well, someone wants you to go about wearing a message that says you are. I’ll bet you saw through that before I even wrote this.

In any case, we do have an immigrant problem. We also have a Congress that we elected to manage the business of our government, things like immigration, and they are doing nothing. Well, they do point their finger at the President, again to distract you from the fact that this is their business done on our behalf and they are failing to do it. This is not the business of the White House, it is the business of the Congress and it is not being done.

So instead of wasting your valuable resources on a product designed to make you look foolish, call your senators and your Congressional representative and tell them to do our business, which is what they were hired (elected) to do.

If they do not do it, then in November vote them out. Fire them. That is what we do with worthless employees.

As for that offensive shirt: Let them rot in a warehouse. Support the veterans, of course, but also demand that Congress deals with the business they are paid to handle. It is not one or the other or one at the expense of the other.

We can and we should do all that is required of us as Americans. Bigotry is not on that list.

Enjoy our new and wonderful snow. But do call your U.S. representative before you fire up the snowmobile. Ride safe, ski safe and enjoy our north country winter.