Letters to the Editor

Letter: Toxic comments

I recently saw a particularly strident comment in response to Charles Wohlforth’s column, “Dunleavy means to keep his promise to liquidate Alaska’s government.”

A commenter who cannot spell pension, wants them ended. “Make state workers pay for (their) own health care” and cut holiday pay? Absolutely no qualified workers would be attracted to such conditions.

“End this state and make it a territory again?” Putrid and ignorant suggestions like this need to be publicly flagellated. This commenter is advocating for the withdrawal of tens of thousands of servicemen and women, scrapping F-35 plans for Fairbanks, ending Coast Guard patrols that protect our fisheries and save Alaskans in peril, destroying massive federal pass-through grants, and ripping the stitches out of the 50th star on every flag in America.

A plague of ignorance is eating our state and our nation from the inside out. Appalling comments like this reflect a chaotic, untested and terrifying lack of understanding. It cannot be written off as peanut-gallery discourse; echoes of these sentiments exist in an alarming swath of Alaskans. It is the duty of any informed citizen to push back wholeheartedly against such vile and threatening discourse.

— Travis Neff

Anchorage

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