Letters to the Editor: Will Girl Scouts be next on Gov. Ron DeSantis' 'woke' hit-list?

These are letters submitted to The Palm Beach Post from readers. They are sometimes edited for space.

* * *

Re Frank Cerabino’s column, Attention, Florida Girl Scouts": I couldn’t help but remember a quote from historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s introduction to her book, Strongmen – Mussolini to the Present. "From Mussolini through Putin, all of the strongmen featured in this book establish forms of personalist rule, which concentrates enormous power in one individual whose own political and financial interests prevail over national ones in shaping policy. Loyalty, rather than expertise, is the primary qualification for serving in the state bureaucracy, as is participation in corruption schemes."

MORE: Attention, Florida Girl Scouts: This is no time to be kind, considerate of others | Frank Cerabino

Cerabino’s listing of Gov. DeSantis’ grievances and retribution against entities that don’t agree with him, Disney, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Special Olympics, for example and his appointment of people like the exceedingly unqualified but supremely loyal Joseph Ladapo as Surgeon General, certainly qualify him for inclusion in Dr. Ben-Ghiat’s hall of strongman shame. If Gov. DeSantis ever becomes President DeSantis, I have no doubt that she will include him in an update to her book.

Ted Block, Delray Beach

School priorities out of whack

I find it horrifying that there are parents of small children who are more afraid of their children reading some books than they are of those same children being shot beyond recognition by an AR-15. Please don’t tell me that a massacre can’t happen in your school. It has happened in many different kinds of schools, elementary through high school, in many regions of the country, in many kinds of neighborhoods. The shooting in Texas had 19 “good guys” with guns defeated by one “bad guy” with a gun.

As a retired teacher, I was devastated to read in Sunday's paper that teachers are being told to pull from their shelves books that might offend a small group of parents. Let’s get our priorities straight. Keep our kids safe and then worry about what they’re reading.

Barb Freed, Palm Beach Gardens

Frivolous book bans don't help parents

I remember when the Nazis burned books that favored Jews, gays, gypsies and other "non-Arian" groups. I remember how Goebbels controlled the Nazi news media to get people to believe his lies and his thought police. Now Gov. DeSantis has recreated a similar environment where intellectual inquiry and true history is denied or dismissed as far left socialism. Does this sound familiar?

I am the best educator of my 22 grandchildren, not DeSantis. To facilitate my efforts, I am requesting the governor publicly supply a list of all the banned books so that I, and like-minded others, could supplement the educational gaps that a "WOKE" child needs to enter the real world as an educated and unbiased person.

Les Rivkin, West Palm Beach

The Palm Beach Post is committed to publishing a diversity of opinions. Please send your views to letters@pbpost.com or by mail to Letters to the Editor, The Palm Beach Post, 2751 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach, FL 33405. Letters are subject to editing, must not exceed 200 words and must include your name, address and daytime phone number (We will publish only your name and city).

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Are Girl Scouts in danger of being too 'Woke?'