Dear Editor:

George Orwell, who turned out to be adept at understanding human nature, had some thoughts about freedom of speech. He said, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

Recent "Letters to the Editor" (December 2018) made it clear that some do not understand that right unless they approve.

While I disagree with the writers who find bias in the content of the piece, "Journalists are just doing their jobs" (October 2018), they have every right to express their concern. However, out of this exchange we need to understand that not everything that is in print is to our liking.

As far as criticizing the president, I can hardly believe what I read on the editorial page. In the words of Theodore Roosevelt, “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

John McCain spoke to the current situation when he said, “If you want to preserve — I’m very serious now — if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started.”

Patricia Buschette
Renville, Minn.