The dangers of careless oratory

When I started writing this series of guest columns for The Daily Advance, I told myself that this is a serious, liken unto grave responsibility, and that I would not use this forum as an excuse to engage in the kind of puerile, free-wheeling exchanges that I had come to greatly enjoy in the letters to the editor column over the past few years. Certainly, cutting an individual out from the herd, so to speak, and singling them out for criticism seemed totally beyond the pale. I made a silent vow to myself not to do so.

Well. It didn’t take me long to blow that vow into atoms. Mind you, I still think that it’s a bad idea — unprofessional, even. But ... every now and again I run across something so disturbing, so breathtaking in its scope, that it shakes me down to my very foundation.

And so it is with a recent letter to the editor to this paper.

Now, before I go any further, I wish to be clearly on the record as to my position about the First Amendment. I believe, along with the Founding Fathers, that free speech should be an absolute, unabridged right. While I profoundly disagree with many on the right, I would take up arms to defend their right to speak freely on any subject — no matter how distasteful I may find it. So what I am about to discuss is not whether a person has the right to say a thing, but whether or not they should.

Like it or not, we live in an age where inflammatory rhetoric is hurtled through the broadcast spectrum like digital lightening bolts. Limbaugh, Beck and company light up the airwaves with any number of questionable, if not outright specious comments. I get the impression that not a great deal of fact checking is going on out there.

So why pick on this individual? Because it’s close to home, I guess. This is where I was born, live and work, and have raised a family. And I’m not picking on him. It is not my desire to embarrass or enrage anyone. I’m quite serious.

While I don’t know this individual, I take it on faith that he is a good man and loves his family, his community and his country. He obviously cares, very deeply, about all of them, and the issues about which he writes. If umbrage is taken, then I am deeply sorry.

And as to what is it was that disturbed me so, it was just this; the letter writer stated the following in his post as literal fact: “One White house adviser is on record for saying that children should be terminated if they do not meet his physical standard of an ‘American.’ This same White House adviser also indicates that elders should not receive health care that could be used for his selection of the right age group. That’s really scary!”

You’d better know it is!

In two sentences, the writer has accused the current administration of having come out on the record in favor of the Holocaust-like health care solution of murdering children and neglecting seniors to death. One group buys the farm in the name of xenophobia, and the other in the name of managed care.

After I had taken a deep breath —and cleaned up the spilt diet Dr. Pepper from around my work station — I got real busy scouring the Internet for any scrap of information which might have led one to the conclusion that anyone on either side of the issue had ever said anything remotely like this.

Needless to say, I had no luck in doing so. Far be it for me to call anybody out as untruthful. In the first place, I don’t believe that’s true. I’m just saying that I couldn’t locate it. I went so far as to call the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C. in an attempt to track this down. A very nice lady (whose name I neglected to secure) acted somewhat startled (and a little incredulous) before saying that she’d get back to me. I’ve yet to hear from her. In her defense, she probably thought that she was being “punked” by a right-wing blogger.

Once again, the letter writer had every right to say what he did, and I’ll fight the first person who says that he didn’t. That is not in dispute.

But again, my question is whether it was wise to do so. I firmly believe that the letter-writer had heard this story somewhere, which is why he repeated it for the benefit of The Daily Advance’s readers. But, did he actually believe it to be true? And did he really, really think about it before repeating it? Did he give any consideration to the import and meaning of what he was saying? Words like that become viral in print or on the Internet, and spread like a fast-acting poison.

Consider them again, distilled down to their essential meaning: The president of the United States wants to murder, or have murdered, small children and old people.

Read that sentence again, and then turn it over in your mind, slowly and deliberately. Is there truly anyone reading this newspaper who, in fact, believes this to be accurate, including the letter writer?

All I can say is that I sincerely, fervently hope not.

Over and over again, all summer, I heard near-hysterical people at town hall meetings scream out “I want my country back!” I had the distinct feeling that they were actually saying “I want things back the way they once were!”

I don’t. When I was young, for instance, our leaders were assassinated with alarming regularity. Careless oratory always preceded it.

Bud Wright is a resident of Elizabeth City