To the editor:

A property sign near Moody Pond reads (in several languages): “Hate Has No Home Here.” It’s an icy reproof to persons supporting immigration policies the owners disclaim as restrictive and hateful.

“Hate” came into contemporary political parlance during the 2016 election, when one campaign applied the term appellatively to a political opponent. They did it so often they forgot to offer solutions for the economy, trade or overseas conflicts.

They lost the election. They lost because their candidate had more inveterate hate than the opponent to whom they imputed it.

The Moody Pond property owners follow Hillary’s example. In easy effrontery they presume to impute hate — not to themselves, but to compatriot Americans supporting immigration policies the owners decry as some flagrant moral offense.

Do their imputations raise concerns? Yes. Concerns about them. Concerns about vanity. And immaturity. And gross political overreach. And especially — the impudence to mar a placid pond’s serenity with a sign casting its disdainful glance over others.

We see their sign, stern and repellent. It shares no congeniality with kindly “Save the Pond” signs nearby. It says its owners are without hate … oh, but if they were. What hypocrisy. For when persons post signs declaring they don’t hate, we know they hate. It’s merely a question of whom and what they hate.

Admittedly, no law forbids posting vainglorious signs. But whom do property owners think they impress by proclaiming how good and loving they are … while insinuating how debased and hateful others are?

A militant sign over a peaceful pond does its owners no credit. They impute hate to citizens favoring border security … but what of themselves? Which king or pope told them they were without hate? Will their next sign say they’re without sin? If so, may they post it, and cast the first stone.

John Edelberg

Saranac Lake