While I agree with all of Stanley McKie’s assessments of Jon Buss’ rantings, I hope he will reconsider his promise to discontinue his subscription because of them (“Enough with the sky-is-falling hysteria, Mr. Buss”, published March 23).

I have been responding to Jon’s spewings of hatred for liberals and outright lies about just about everything for several years in this publication and I hope to continue to do so for many years to come, but silencing voices that we disagree with is not and should not be the goal of liberal minded folks such as us. That has, for some time, been the goal of ultra-conservatives like Jon.

Silencing opposing viewpoints only drives those viewpoints to be shared by like-minded souls and gives us no venue to call them out for the misguided rantings that they are and to counter them with the more realistic views that many of us here on the Plateau share. Would you and George Coo and Shawn Johnson and many other liberal voices in our area even consider writing a letter or letters to the editor in this publication if the David Cannons, Dan Shannons and, yes, even the Jon Busses didn’t try to sway the readers with their half-truths and often outright lies writing in our paper to try and make people think that they are the voices that should be heard and listened to?

I think most of us would be content to let Rich Elfers carry the ball for us in hopes that reason and goodness would prevail in our community without our input. If not for their rantings, people of Jon’s ilk would just keep spreading their opinions with no counter from people like us to call him out.

So please don’t cancel your subscription the next time our editor chooses to print one of Jon’s whatever-they-are; see it as an opportunity to keep setting the record straight, as I do, every chance I get. I have had several people in the area contact me to thank me for my letters and it encourages me to keep plugging away. Just sayin’.

Larry Benson

Enumclaw