So long, Dilbert

When someone cares about nobody but themselves, most of us would call them selfish. I was sad to see Dilbert removed from the comics, mostly because I related a lot to the office humor.

However, after hearing Scott Adams' impassioned thoughts on his podcast about our diverse country, I don't want to see Dilbert anytime soon. Some would say, “then don't read it”, or “free speech.” Well, I think we have reached the point where your freedom is my oppression.

A lot of this happened during the COVID disaster, when most would comply with mask mandates, but some thought it violated their freedom to not comply. It became politicized and turned into another red-state versus blue-state culture war. Not long after 2008, and more recently after 2016 concurrent with social media, we started building more and more anger toward each other, driven in large part by FOX News and other extreme outlets fanning the flames. Road rage, mass shootings, kids acting out in schools — this time with guns — increased.

We'd better check ourselves because as responsible adults we need to assess what we teach the children, because they take their cues from us. We're all in this together at some point. Gone are days when a White person would rather die than receive treatment from a Black nurse. Gone are the days when a White solider wouldn't fight beside a Black one.

So we need to teach the children that we don't want to turn back the clock and change or distort history. Young folks are selfish enough already right? Besides, what would they do with a rotary dial phone?

— Howard Bell, Vallejo