To the editor:

Kevin Groenhagen’s letter (7/7/15) implying that Kansas isn’t as bad as other states and that non-Kansans don’t say negative things about it flies in the face of facts. The impact of Governor Brownback’s inspired tax policies on our schools, as one example, was satirized in Doonesbury. Several national comics, including Jon Stewart, were handed material made for comedy straight from Topeka’s legislative leaders. The exposed hypocrisies made Kansas government the nation’s clown.

The negative view of Kansas politics stretches back to our goat gland governor, John Brinkley. The adverse look was given more foolishness to contemplate with Thomas Frank’s book, “What’s The Matter With Kansas?”

Governor Brownback continues to flout the constitution and the Supreme Court with his unfavorable treatment of the LGBT communities. His pronouncements are appeals to the crowd while playing on the irrational fears and prejudices of supporters. These are the acts normally associated with arrogant and utterly immoral demagogues. It certainly doesn’t make Kansas politics look much better.

Groenhagen claims that we are not as bad as other states such as Illinois (several governors are in prison) or California. For the latter he blames the governor for the state’s dire water shortage, a weather phenomenon, not a political one. In any case trying to relate Kansas to other states with problems reminds me of C. Day Lewis’s:

It is the logic of our times

No subject for immortal verse —

That we who lived by honest dreams

Defend the bad against the worse.