Dear Editor:
Children, children, please; could we remember our manners?
I have a great idea.
Dear Editor:
Children, children, please; could we remember our manners?
I have a great idea. How about if the Dispatch refuses to print any letters to the editor (or columns, for that matter) that contain name calling? No more “thuggish, extremely ignorant, right wing extremists.” No more “progressive movement’s collection of liars, cheats, thieves, traitors and killers.” I think it would be a simple way to help restore civility and thoughtful discourse to this paper. Isn’t the editor’s job to edit? Simply edit out all this childish nonsense. It wouldn’t surprise me to read “Your mother wears army boots,” or “Neener, neener, neener” in a letter, except that it’s usually much meaner than that. The schoolyard bullies should simply not be allowed to bully.
Reasonable people can disagree reasonably. Isn’t that what this country is all about? We have complex issues to deal with, even in our little town, and healthy discussion of all the various points of view should help build solutions through understanding, compromise and consensus. It’s called the democratic process. Attacking the other side only creates divisiveness and ill will, particularly when it’s so unbelievably virulent, and is totally counterproductive.
I sometimes go weeks at a time without reading the letters to the editor, just because it gets so nasty. Then, I read a few here and there; a letter of praise or criticism, someone’s reasonable opinion about something; a response to an article, etc., and I make the mistake of resuming reading regularly. Then, whammo, the manure hits the ventilator again. It’s like getting pornographic spam. You feel dirty just reading that stuff.
Does The Dispatch get so few letters to the editor that it feels it has to print everything, no matter how far off the deep end it is? I don’t see this problem in the Mercury News. Sometimes you can’t even figure out what the issue is that’s being “discussed,” it’s just all about rage and fear and blame. I really think it’s time for the paper to step in and set some guidelines for civil discourse. If your letter doesn’t meet the guidelines, it doesn’t get printed. Period. No personal attacks; no name calling. Didn’t we learn this in kindergarten?
Maybe then, more reasonable, thoughtful people will write letters because they know that this is a forum for considered, intelligent opinions – a forum where differences of opinion are respected, and one doesn’t have to fear being attacked for expressing them, a forum that affirms that differences are a good thing that there is power in bringing all our various perspectives to bear on a problem.
This is the strength of our system, a strength that is diluted when it is allowed to degenerate into mud slinging. I think it’s time for The Dispatch to show some responsibility when the letter writers do not.
Patrice Lemon, Gilroy
Submitted Friday, Sept. 26 to ed****@****ic.com
