Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. My Open Letter to Nick Sandmann

Jim George
By Jim George
Jim George Member
Semi-Retired attorney, George and George, law partner is wife Judi, my specialty is Admiralty and Maritime Law, two sons, Jim and Brock, active in community affairs, especially Symphony and Opera, fanatical Blue Angels Fan, served in Strategic Air Command, USAF. Have become Floridians very recently--closer to the Gulf and the Gulf Breezes--and, last but not least, The Blue Angels!
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9 COMMENTS
 

Dear Nick,

I am writing this note to you in the hope that it will be just one of the thousands of similar letters you will receive expressing both support for you and your friends after what took place at the Lincoln Memorial. I’d also like to express great pride in the restraint you showed and the gentlemanly approach you took with the person who got in your face with a hand drum. In the midst of all the early, and totally erroneous and evidence-free, things which were said about you and your friends, and with a feeling that something just did not feel right about what I was hearing (not to mention that I also have a MAGA hat which I wear with pride!) I decided to do that which I now wish more “tweeters” and “Facebookers” and “journalists” had done — study the matter further and look at the actual video of the incident. After I did that, and continued reading many articles which were written with a more reasoned foundation, I became more and more upset at what I was seeing, and, at the same time, more and more proud of your conduct and that of your friends. I should explain there is a reason I took such a personal interest in this incident, beyond feeling a general sense of revulsion at unfair treatment of anyone, is due to my many decades of practicing trial law in many Courts for a number of decades.

Back then, I was also surrounded by a group of protesters who were expressing their disagreement with certain decisions being made in the War on Terror on the Plaza at Santa Fe, New Mexico. In doing this, they were, of course, exercising one of the most sacred rights passed to us by our Founding Fathers in the form of the First Amendment, “…the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” While not questioning, for a single moment, their right to do so, I decided, wrongly as it turned out, that they might be willing to listen to some facts contrary to those I was hearing from them, as they differed dramatically from what I had learned in my study of those policies. As I walked up to them to attempt to introduce them to some facts it did not seem they had considered, it became quickly apparent that they not only were not interested in hearing anything which conflicted with their own contentions, but that a couple of members of their group were getting greatly agitated by my mere presence (on, of course, a public space) and it became quickly obvious that my continuing attempt to have a discussion with them was not going to be conducive to my good health.

The reason, Nick, that I relate this story to you is one of the main reasons I decided to dig much deeper than so many people took the trouble to do was that the moment I saw the smile on your face in that photo which caused so many to jump to so many wrong conclusions I remembered the discomfort I experienced in that confrontation on the Santa Fe Plaza.

Nick, I have two sons, and should either one of them have conducted themselves in exactly the same manner you did, under those highly tense conditions, I would have been immensely proud of them. I just want to be sure that you know there are so many parents who took the time to understand the facts who are so proud of you at this time. In the hope that this might be the best way to get this letter to you.

Thank you for being a gentleman under such trying circumstances.

Sincerely, Jim George

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  1. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western ChauvinistJoined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    Amen! Did you see him signal to a friend to deescalate his confrontation with the younger Indian man? 

    Well done, Nick! Good man!

    • #1
    • January 22, 2019, at 1:18 PM PST
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  2. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude

    I had the same impulse, Jim George. As we often say around my house, you can’t subtract pain but you can add love. 

     

    Is this the right address? 

    421 Monmouth St
    Newport, KY 41071

    By the way, if you write it as a post card, the secretary who receives it can see at a glance that it’s positive and supportive. 

    • #2
    • January 22, 2019, at 1:35 PM PST
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  3. Jim George Member
    Jim George
    Post author

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    I had the same impulse, Jim George. As we often say around my house, you can’t subtract pain but you can add love.

     

    Is this the right address?

    421 Monmouth St
    Newport, KY 41071

    By the way, if you write it as a post card, the secretary who receives it can see at a glance that it’s positive and supportive.

    I thought that putting it on Facebook and also on the High School’s Facebook page, would be the surest ways to get it to him/them; I just hope that works as these young people really need to know there are those of us out here who are behind them 100 %, something they sure are NOT getting from their own High School administrators. Imagine how that must hurt these young people, who didn’t ask for any of this! Thanks, Jim

    • #3
    • January 22, 2019, at 1:51 PM PST
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  4. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles

    Jim,

    I’ve been busy all day and a just now getting a chance to comment here. I admire you so much for this. I mean I already admired you, but now even more. I can only imagine what this has done to him and some of the other kids. It just makes me so mad. Anyway, good for you.

    • #4
    • January 22, 2019, at 6:24 PM PST
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  5. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn

    I hope he sees your letter, @jimgeorge. It is a loving and encouraging testament to free speech and also a cautionary note of where a demonstration might take you. Good for him and good for you!

    • #5
    • January 23, 2019, at 7:04 AM PST
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  6. PHenry Member
    PHenry

    I think he further showed his honorable and good nature in his NBC interview:

    SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NBC ‘TODAY’ HOST: Do you feel that you owe anybody an apology? Do you see your own faults in any way?

    NICK SANDMANN, COVINGTON CATHOLIC STUDENT: As far as standing there, I had every right to do so. My position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr. Phillips. I respect him. I’d like to talk to him. I mean, in hindsight I wished we could have walked away and avoided the whole thing.

     

    He has a very good head on his shoulders.

    • #6
    • January 23, 2019, at 10:27 AM PST
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  7. Stad Coolidge
    Stad

    Jim George: I’d also like to express great pride in the restraint you showed and the gentlemanly approach you took with the person who got in your face with a hand drum.

    Young Nick is a better man than I am. I would have probably punched the guy in the face, and end up being beaten to a bloody pulp by his cohorts . . .

    • #7
    • January 23, 2019, at 10:44 AM PST
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  8. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles

    PHenry (View Comment):

    I think he further showed his honorable and good nature in his NBC interview:

    SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NBC ‘TODAY’ HOST: Do you feel that you owe anybody an apology? Do you see your own faults in any way?

    NICK SANDMANN, COVINGTON CATHOLIC STUDENT: As far as standing there, I had every right to do so. My position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr. Phillips. I respect him. I’d like to talk to him. I mean, in hindsight I wished we could have walked away and avoided the whole thing.

    He has a very good head on his shoulders.

    I saw a clip of that. And now Savannah Guthrie is being attacked for giving the boy a voice. No opposing views allowed. No facts allowed either. Screenshot:

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2019/01/23/nick-nicholas-sandmann-today-show-interview-savannah-guthrie-twitter/2655420002/

    • #8
    • January 23, 2019, at 1:12 PM PST
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  9. Gossamer Cat Coolidge
    Gossamer Cat

    In reading this post, it just occurred to me that this young man is actually the antidote to the despair this entire episode evoked. He didn’t back down. Not when the protester drummed in his face, not in the face of the twitter mob, and not in the face of the media. I’ve seen very few adults stand firm against the full wrath of the left-usually by this time they’ve issued the groveling apology with the requisite “that’s not who I am” weasel words. But we also know that groveling just feeds the beast. Kudos to this young man; there is hope yet.

    • #9
    • January 24, 2019, at 1:04 AM PST
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    • 1 like

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