It has become apparent that some highly unusual symptoms are beginning to reveal themselves right here in Butler County. Some of the more severe ones are the diminishing ability to respect other people, other people’s property and to separate right from wrong.

There have been plenty of wrongs in the world lately and fewer rights. There have been plenty of examples of disrespecting people locally and across the nation and there have obviously been plenty examples of disrespecting personal property and public property in the past 10 months.

The riot that took place on Wednesday in the nation’s capitol was, of course, the worst situation. We aren’t sure what an antifa is (do they have antlers?) nor do we know of anyone identifying themselves as QAnon (but he may play defense for the Ravens).

We know people in Alcoholics-Anon and Gamblers-Anon, even some guys that should belong to can’t-putt-anon, but what these new groups are or what they are anon-ing about has been as hard to see and grasp as a virus.

Maybe they were at the rallies-turned-riots in Washington, Portland, Pittsburgh and Saxonburg — sorry, we scared their busloads of antlered antifas off with our shotguns.

What we do know is common sense Butler County residents are becoming blinded to reality because of hatred and divisiveness perpetuated by elected officials starting in the White House and carrying all the way through county party chair-people and committee-people.

We offered a small $1,000 reward for any tips that would help find out who had committed a crime against someone here in Butler County. The looney tunes came out of the woodwork. We were declared extremely liberal and in the same breath extremely conservative for that action.

Which is it? Shouldn’t we all want to know who the lowlifes are? We mean besides us.

Some were shocked that we would dare offer a reward for a victim–less crime that would be covered by insurance anyway, but not for over-throwing the government.

Well, as far as we could tell, the only thing the victims did was park their cars where criminals could damage them.

We have no reason to believe any of the people that traveled to D.C. did any of the damage there. Not one person who was so insulted by our reward offered to put up a reward for whomever they viewed as the bad guys. Lots of crying and complaining, but no participation. That must be another later symptom of COVID-19.

And, of course, this was the first and last time we had given money to a local cause, according to the whiners. Please tell the hospital, the community college, the Rotary clubs, the churches, the GoFundMe pages and the dozens of other organizations that we have given checks to that based on your knowledge, those funds will disappear at any second. But, of course, you will be replacing them with your own generous gift.

Bottom line is politics had no play in our wanting to help law enforcement end this escalating political problem before it gets worse. Half of our readers think we are too liberal and the other half think we are too conservative. That is an indication we are pretty even.

The tire slashing crime happened here. That makes it personal to us. The ugly incident in D.C. is way beyond our reach of influence, but if we knew with certainty that someone from Butler had committed those crimes, we would absolutely turn them in and we wouldn’t check their political affiliation first.

Grow up and remember the basic lessons you were taught growing up here. Show some respect for others and maybe, just maybe, you will get some in return. And please wear your mask.

— RV