The Sun Journal’s Nov. 12 edition included an unusually shrill letter notable for its combination of malice and ignorance. A close reading shows that it communicates only one certain fact: that the author really, really hates Republicans.

Many of the enraged writer’s charges are absurd on the face of it. Others clash with information readily accessible on the Internet.

If the Republicans were scheming to bankrupt Social Security, Medicare, nutrition programs and health care for children, then the national budgets enacted under GOP administrations would show deep cuts. They do not.

If privatization is a hellish Republican plot inspired by hatred for government then how to explain privatization in Germany, Japan, Great Britain, France and the People’s Republic of China, among many others? Some of these programs have been carried out by Socialist parties.

If Republican administrations were intent on wholesale deregulation from sheer malice, then how to explain Sen. Edward Kennedy from Massachusetts’ initiative in deregulating the trucking industry?

If the Republicans have been insanely intent on wholesale deregulation, then the Federal Register’s monthly lists of regulations must have shrunk to a few pages during GOP rule. They continued to appear in hundreds.

The assertion that unregulated capitalism is causing oil prices to increase is simpy weird. Demand affects prices and the greatest increases in demand come from the rapid expansion of the Indian and Chinese economies after they moved toward free market economies.

There is more to be criticized in the Nov. 12 rant, but space is limited.

John N. Frary, Farmington