Letter: All should agree to tone down rhetoric

This is in response to JoLynn Glanzer's letter 'Speech that is legal still might be harmful” on June 17.

How easily people forget or choose to forget.

The author wondered if President Donald Trump's son thought his father had been murdered. How do you think Sasha and Malia Obama felt about effigies of their father being lynched or burned? Or maybe that was just fake news.

Has the author also forgotten about the gunman who shot and killed several people, including a federal judge, attempting to kill Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2011? I could just claim he was an anti-government conservative when the truth is more likely that he was a paranoid schizophrenic and thus mentally ill.

Now what Kathy Griffin and James Hodgkinson did was wrong. And the updated 'Julius Caesar” is defiant, but frankly ridiculous. I think people can agree that on the morality of these cases, whether they be Christian, atheist, or any belief system in between.

The nation's political discourse has deteriorated over the last couple decades for multiple reasons, and made worse by infotainment and social media. But things will never change unless all sides agree to tone down the rhetoric. I can do that. Can you?

Benjamin Sparrow

Coralville