Is civil discourse too much to ask?

Happy Friday my Citrus County friends. Let's chat.

If you pay even the slightest attention to Just Wright Citrus blogs you know:
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• I’m fiercely loyal to our readers.
• I’m the same way with our sponsor advertisers.
• We have polite, engaging conversation here that focuses on substance, not offensive rhetoric.​

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So when someone comes along and wants to mess with all three, it gets my goat.

During a lull in the county commission meeting Thursday afternoon, I posted on the Just Wright Citrus Facebook page a photo of the Scott Adams office building going up in downtown Inverness. Anytime a subject catches a lot of comments I check every 10 minutes or so to make sure the conversation isn’t going off the rails.

Some people wanted to know why Adams didn’t have a parking lot. Others explained Adams paid a fee to the city in lieu of parking.

Now. You can have an opinion whether that’s a good thing or not, and lots of people did. But you can’t say what one reader said. I won’t repeat it but I’ll paraphrase with one word: corruption.

Of course. The city of Inverness couldn’t have possibly worked out a win-win arrangement with a local businessman without someone getting paid off.

Seriously. What is wrong with people?

(FYI: Initially I had the gentleman's name in this blog but decided to go with first-name only.)

My policy is to send a private Facebook message telling the person if there’s a problem with a comment.

This is what I wrote:

“James, you can’t say stuff like that on my blog. Please don’t accuse anyone of corruption here. I’m deleting the comment.”

We’ll get to his response in a moment.

Since the inception of Just Wright Citrus, I was determined the conversation would be lively, spirited, opinionated, robust — and polite. Big on politeness. This should be a safe place for expressing opinions without being called Brandon, woke, corrupt or any number of adjectives meant only to disparage someone.

James’ response was similar to the handful of others who don’t like the polite rules. He said he would unfollow the page and block me. OK fine.

But he couldn’t leave it there. James sent me an email in which he threatened to chase down my sponsors and tell all his conservative buddies to boycott us.

Oh heck, let him explain. This is his complete email to me minus the nasty language:

“I’m off your facebook page and blog. I am now going to reach out to other conservatives as well as your sponsors and let them know why I won’t be patronizing their businesses. You have no idea, literally how far I’ll take this. I will see to it they lose money. If you doubt my abilities to organize boycotts and create turmoil for people enabling liberals and their agendas I will gladly provide you with some references. I’m sick and tired of (bad word) (bad word) (bad word) carrying water for the far left. I’m fairly sure the overall consensus in this area isn’t democratic so I’m sure many people will agree. How’s that for civil? The time for civil has long past (sic).”

My response:

“Thanks for your comments. I’ll save you the trouble of tracking down my sponsors. Instead, I’ll just run your email so that EVERYONE will know your plans. Who knows? You may pick up some fans and start your own blog. It’s a lot of fun.

Mike

P.S. I have no doubt you’re a real pro at creating ‘turmoil.’ Congratulations. That’s quite an accomplishment.”

I know I’m picking on poor James (if that’s his actual name). He’s not the first to get ugly and he won’t be the last.

So I’m just going to end the week this way:

God bless Just Wright Citrus sponsors, former and current. They are local business owners or heads of nonprofits who use their energy to support this community. That they’ve chosen Just Wright Citrus for financial support and encouragement is humbling. I take none of it for granted.

And God bless Just Wright Citrus readers. We’re talking about the tough stuff here without being rude or obnoxious. Because of that, decision-makers pay attention. I thank you for participating in conversations that will move our county forward.

Finally, God bless James. We need people like him to remind us how good life is. I hope he has a pleasant Friday.

Join the discussion on our Facebook page.

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