{"id":10416,"date":"2011-01-19T18:13:13","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T02:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiken.wpengine.com\/news\/gun-themed-campaign-ads-even-happened-in-kent-where-is-the-civility\/"},"modified":"2016-10-23T17:55:36","modified_gmt":"2016-10-24T00:55:36","slug":"gun-themed-campaign-ads-even-happened-in-kent-where-is-the-civility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/letters\/gun-themed-campaign-ads-even-happened-in-kent-where-is-the-civility\/","title":{"rendered":"Gun-themed campaign ads even happened in Kent: Where is the civility?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whatever you believe about the Jan. 8 shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, it is clear that now is the time to reflect on the nature of political discourse in this country. The very foundation of a democracy is the free and peaceful interchange of ideas.<\/p>\n<p>Recent political discourse has crossed the line with references to violence and suggestions that \u201cSecond Amendment remedies\u201d may be somehow justified if victory cannot be had at the ballot box.<\/p>\n<p>Such images may or may not inspire deranged individuals to violence, but they certainly interfere with rational people having clear discussions about the issues of the day.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, this problem is not limited to other places. The picture at right was taken right here in Kent.<\/p>\n<p>It is time to demand better. While passion and energy are to be admired in politics, ideas can be expressed without vitriol.<\/p>\n<p>References to violence are beyond the pale and deserve rebuke whenever they occur.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Bryan Kesterson<\/p>\n<p>Kent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whatever you believe about the Jan. 8 shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, it is clear that now is the time to reflect on the nature of political discourse in this country. The very foundation of a democracy is the free and peaceful interchange of ideas.<br \/>\nRecent political discourse has crossed the line with references to violence and suggestions that \u201cSecond Amendment remedies\u201d may be somehow justified if victory cannot be had at the ballot box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":10417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10416"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10416"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}