Takes issue with cartoon
Dear Mr. Imes,
With all due respect, and I do respect you though we may disagree at various points; the position, intended or unintended, your paper (you) took denigrating any who respects the state flag and may wish to keep it, by likening them to Isis terrorists is deplorable. (Editorial cartoon, June 24, 2015)
Equating good citizens of your city and of this state to psychotic zealots who behead innocent children and adults in public across the world, burn people alive and show it on any of a hundred world-wide outlets, has effectively separated you-and hopefully your paper, from the good citizens you have maligned.
I ask you, could any reasonable person possibly make the above assertion? Can you see anything out of place or inappropriate here?
At the same time, I assert you right to free speech-even extreme hate speech. However, I cannot condone it, nor support any rhetoric deliberately meant to harm someone’s good name or otherwise hurt them by castigating them as the worst brand of murderers, without the possibility of rebuttal in a like form.
On the other hand, some things are so obviously absurd that to respond to them would be, in some strange way to give them some credence. There is nothing credible or gentlemanly in branding people you don’t even know in this manner. Most Sincerely,
D. Presley Hutchens
Brooksville
Birney Imes responds: The cartoon Mr. Hutchens refers to equates a Confederate flag-waving Dylann Roof, who committed an act of terrorism in his murder of nine innocents in a Charleston, South Carolina, church, with an ISIS terrorist. Roof had been photographed holding the Confederate flag. We publish editorial cartoons, columns, editorials and reader letters that express a variety of opinions with the hope of generating more discussion and broader understanding of the issues we face.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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