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Healthy discussions taking place, even in the trash

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L&T Publisher Earl Watt

Writing a column on the opinion page doesn’t come without its perils. While many of you offer support and tell me how much you enjoy the column, imagine my shock when some people didn’t agree with me.
Just for those who don’t know how to take me, that was cynicism.
Others have offered their views as well, and they have been chided and vilified as well as supported.
Welcome to the world of opinion, and more importantly, to the world we live in where there is only one acceptable point of view — my own.
Or at least that’s what we all like to believe.
When someone on “anti” social media read my take on how one of our political parties refers to any opposition to their view as a coup, the made the point better than I ever could by calling my opinion “trash.”
They didn’t say, “I respectfully disagree,” or “I don’t believe that’s the case.”
No, it was that any opinion that doesn’t align with their own is trash.
Thank you for proving exactly what I was addressing.
I may have made a mistake by refering to Democrats generically as taking this position. I don’t believe all Democrats are incapable of working across the aisle.
Likewise, Republicans also can become so focused on a singular view that they, too, fail to realize that other opinions exist.
But, that response to my column being “trash” is still up on our social media page even though we could easily delete it.
Criticism is something I invite. It’s not fair for me to question public policy without putting myself up to those who disagree.
Try that on CNN. You can’t, because they do not allow comments on their very biased “reporting.”
But you can respond to us or any of our editorial content, in favor or opposed.
We don’t allow references to fascism or Nazis any more than we would allow racial slurs. Anyone who posts using that type of language is blocked.
But we clearly do not block all criticism because you can find it on our social media page right now.
Criticism is fine.
But it is a sad state of affairs when people simply think your opinion is trash. How close minded is that, especially when the column in question was based on actual behavior of lawmakers?
False claims were made about Donald Trump demanding that the Navy stop teaching about the Tuskegee airmen from World War II. That was completely not true. What happened was some woke activists within the Navy wanted to make it look like Trump’s order to discontinue all DEI programs was an attempt to remove all references to minorities throughout history.
The Tuskegee pilots were American heroes, and their story is an important piece of American history.
Removing DEI does not mean removing the education of how we reached this point by overcoming class differences, racial differences and many other barriers that kept us from being a nation that lives up to the promise of all being created equal with God given rights that include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In fact, it is important to share these stories to understand two very important American values.
The first is that we recognize there have been times in our past where we accepted inequity, and the second is that we continued to fight for liberty and justice for all.
And we still do. And we still have a ways to go.
 And all of that happens without the biased approach and illegal requirements of DEI.
The Civil Rights Movement focused on removing favoritism in the workplace and in the public square. The Equal Opportunity Employment Act made it a crime to use race, creed, color, religion, national origin or sexual preference as a basis for hiring.
DEI required that employers do so, which is a federal crime and a civil rights violation.
We made sure people were given a chance in class when I grew up, and when I went through my college education classes, we learned to make sure as teachers we would not incidentally only call on the boys or the girls but to monitor ourselves to be fair and balanced. We didn’t have to call this “inclusive” as it was just common sense to make sure if we had any internal leanings that they didn’t adversely affect any group or student.
Growing up in Liberal meant growing up in a diverse community, from the strong Black population we had in the 1970s and 1980s to the Hispanic population we have today. Diversity wasn’t a political catch word but a fact of life, and it existed because we all understood why people came to Liberal, because of the American Dream.
This nation is a beacon of light in a world with some very dark places.
While some continue to look at our political differences as enemies of the state, we have been able to bounce visions for the future off each other for centuries.
It is my view that the leadership in the Washington elite wing of the Democratic Party aren’t interested in any other ideas being allowed to be implemented. What’s worse, they don’t even want us to share any other views.
When they believe your opinion is trash, they aren’t really interested in seeking common ground.
We spent four years under Democratic control, with two of those under a Democratic president and a Democratically-controlled Congress.
I offered my challenge to policies, from border security to foreign trade and international conflict.
Democrats have a right to do the same now that they are the minority.
And I have a right to explain, defend and correct the current administration’s policy proposals.
I will listen, study and opine. Anyone can offer a retort. Hopefully you can offer a better response than simply calling something from a different perspective trash.

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