Letter: Downside of free speech

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July 28, 2010

The Salem News Wed Jul 28, 2010, 12:01 AM EDT

To the editor:

On my blog (www.NorthShoreLiving.blogspot.com) I recently posted two items that discuss the viral e-mails we all regularly receive from those who insist that America is on the brink of destruction, primarily because of our president, whom they insist on calling "Barack Hussein Obama," as if including his middle name proves that he is not an American citizen and that he is secretly a Muslim, hell-bent on destroying our Constitution and the American way of life.

As proof these hate-filled e-mails offer up all kinds of false and misleading diatribe. The exaggerations, lies and fear-mongering propagated by these messages have necessitated the creation of rumor-debunking sites such as Snopes.com, Factcheck.org, Truthorfiction.com and others. Nine times out of 10, if you take the time to do a little research, you find that the e-mails are littered with falsehoods and misleading innuendo. Often they will contain one or two facts, surrounded by misinformation and lies.

Worst of all, they call upon you to forward the e-mails to others in an effort to somehow prove the lies are the truth by virtue of how widely they are circulated.

The messages are never meant to inform, only to inflame. They are an intentional redirection from reality and progress to paranoid delusion and the fomenting of hatred of Americans by Americans. We see the same thing from many of the TV and online news media outlets — FOXNews, in particular.

Consider these tallies compiled by The Washington Post's Dana Milbank of the discussion on Glenn Beck's show on FOXNews since President Obama's inauguration: 202 mentions of Nazis or Nazism, according to transcripts; 147 mentions of Hitler; 193 mentions of fascism or fascist; and another 24 bonus mentions of Joseph Goebbels.

Most of these were directed in some form at Obama, as were the majority of the 802 mentions of socialist or socialism on Beck's nightly "report."

I don't know about you, but I have had enough. The right to freedom of speech is one of our most cherished rights. It is also a double-edged sword: The same right that allows us to criticize our government's policies without fear of reprisal also protects those who endorse and promote racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic hatred and other socially divisive positions.

Therein lies a threat to democracy, because voters who choose to believe unsubstantiated "facts," false innuendo and speeches and videos taken totally out of context, may cast their votes based upon such ignorance and misinformation.

Choosing the above path is a real threat to our American way of life, and it's unacceptable to me. How about you?

Jay Burnham

Hamilton

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