I respectfully disagree with Garnett Payne in his Thursday letter. It’s time to hit reset! Let’s start a “reset” for civility, dialogue, understanding and for putting the needs of our country first.

Let’s end what my neighbor, Henry Rissier, calls “hateful letters to the editor” that won’t unite people. While Henry and I look at things differently, his call to stop the hateful rhetoric is right on the money. We need Kim McGahey, Susan Knopf and others with a political ax to grind to tone it down or we will tune you out! But where do we start?

Let’s look at the preamble to the Constitution for guidance.

“In Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Note the phrase “more perfect.” Our framers weren’t perfect. They understood we the people are not perfect.

“Insure domestic Tranquility.” Can we achieve this without respecting one another?

“Provide for the common defence.” Can’t we agree this is the cornerstone of our freedom?

“Promote the general Welfare.” Note the word general doesn’t specify any particular group, but all of us. Our mutual success ensures general welfare.

“Secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” How can we have liberty ourselves without granting it to others? Freedom to be the best person we can be living in a country of liberty. It’s time to “reset.”

“We assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” — Abraham Lincoln.