Our country, state and community need more ideas

If you have been reading the editorials in the News Letter Journal over the past three decades, you’ll notice that one of our favorite themes is the ideal that “With great freedom comes great responsibility.”
We have also been quick to acknowledge the worth of “owning” your past words or deeds, and just as quick to admonish those who fail to do so.
The new policy we are announcing for our Editorial and Opinion Page moving forward is our attempt to be true to both beliefs.
We have long championed the First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech. As a newspaper we consider ourselves one of the last bastions of that particular freedom, and feel an obligation to protect and preserve the freedom of speech that has long been a cornerstone of this country’s greatness.
But that freedom faces a very real threat right now, and we believe the source of that threat lies in a present inability on the part of many to take responsibility for their speech and the impact it is having on other people- and our country. As leaders of the ongoing free speech movement, we want to do our part to change the destructive tone of our present political conversation by changing the way we communicate on this page.
The primary reason the Founding Fathers sought to ensure freedom of speech in the Bill of Rights was because they rightfully thought that was the best way to guarantee a free exchange of ideas.
But we believe that when it comes to politics, we have enjoyed a near-absolute freedom of speech that has led to abuse of the right. This has actually led to an erosion of the free exchange of ideas because individuals have become too intimidated to express thoughts that may not conform to the ideals of the “left” or “right,” or be considered truly “Republican” or “Democrat” in their origin. Worst of all, they may be branded “liberal,” “conservative,” “progressive” or “populist” - to name just a few.
So in response to this tendency to shame and silence the very ideas that this country so dearly needs to exchange right now, the News Letter Journal will not allow these types of words or labels to be used in the Letters to the Editor, columns or editorials that appear on this page.
We feel our community will be much more encouraged to share ideas if citizens don’t have to be apprehensive about being branded in such a way, and we believe that the ideas themselves will be able to produce a better result if they are judged strictly on their merits.
We also will not print any material that targets or mentions specific individuals, political parties or groups - regardless of whether the communication is considered positive or negative. Such messages are really only appropriate as paid advertisements, and we will only publish them as such moving forward.
It is at this point that the News Letter Journal has to “own” the fact that past editorials have targeted specific individuals or political groups, and we have used the labels listed above - along with a few others that all seemed pretty clever at the time. Although such statements are in keeping with modern political speech, we are disappointed in our own failure to communicate with more civility. We apologize and hope to set an example that will make it easier for others to adhere to the new standard we have set for this page.
This new standard is not an effort to avoid hot topics or issues that make people uncomfortable - although we will admit that we are hoping to make people feel more comfortable about discussing some of those issues. So please continue to write to us about the issues you feel passionate about, but take responsibility for your communication by not demonizing or accusing others with the statements you wish to make on this page. You will find that your letter will be more effective because others won’t feel the need to defend themselves - or their political belief system - against it.
After considerable deliberation, we have decided that these changes are specifically for the OpEd page of the News Letter Journal and our website newslj.com. We are going to continue to allow some degree of political comments under the stories posted to our Facebook page because we believe it is primarily the responsibility of the operators of the platform to take responsibility for the speech expressed there. Within reason, we will leave it up to the owners of the social media platforms themselves to set parameters for responsible speech on those
platforms.
But on our own platform - the pages you hold in your hand or the website you are viewing if you are reading these words- we do want to make an effort to change the way we speak to each other. We hope you will embrace our attempt to take responsibility for encouraging more productive speech in the News Letter Journal moving forward.
Some of you may have noticed that the heading on this page changed from “Opinion” to “Ideas” last week. We made the change because we believe our country, our state and our community need ideas a lot more than we need opinions at this point in our history.