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The Corrosion of Public Discourse

I’ve always valued people’s ability to have a healthy exchange of ideas and find common ground on social media. But that’s increasingly difficult to find these days. People increasingly:

  • Share memes without checking to see if they are based on truth or misinformation
  • Talk past each other rather than to each other
  • Slice, dice and distort data points to fit their viewpoint
  • Talk down to other people and confuse this as an act of virtue

Mood Music:

People on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum do these things, and this week I’ve begun deleting a lot of them from my friends list. I don’t have time to roll around in the dirt. They’ve grown too toxic — a corrosive agent eating away at the public discourse.

A lot of what I feel these days is captured in Andrew Doyle’s article “The mark of an educated mind” in Standpoint magazine.

The article isn’t perfect. Doyle diminishes the power of his message in spots with a holier-than-thou tone. As my wife, Erin, put it, the “mansplainy, academics-of-the-past-were-better tone is so off-putting, especially for those with little experience with the ivory tower attitude.”

But there’s a lot in there worth unpacking. Here are some of his points, followed by mine:

To be a freethinker has little to do with mastery of rhetoric and everything to do with introspection. It is all very well engaging in a debate in order to refine our persuasive skills, but it is a futile exercise unless we can entertain the possibility that we might be wrong. 

Look at most Facebook debates, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find people who admit when they are wrong. They are always right, period.

Too many are seemingly determined to turn difficult arguments into zero-sum games in which to give any ground whatsoever is to automatically surrender it to an opponent.

When one thinks they are always right, they can’t grow as a human being. In my own battle with the demons, I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. Wanting something to be true doesn’t make it so. Insisting on spreading misinformation and not fact-checking oneself contributes to the disease.

The natural human instinct for confirmation bias presents a further problem, one especially prominent among ideologues. Anything can be taken to support one’s position so long as it is perceived through the lens of prejudgment. … Worse still, such an approach often correlates with a distinctly moralistic standpoint. Many of the most abusive individuals on social media cannot recognize their behavior for what it is because they have cast themselves in the role of the virtuous.

This point is especially true in the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Convinced that stay-at-home orders and mask mandates are the lash of the dictator? There are always data sets floating around the internet that you can deconstruct and rebuild to prove your point. I see people do this all the time with state-by-state COVID case numbers. Typically, they point out low death rates to prove that government is lying to us, while ignoring the horror stories coming from multitudes of people who have had the virus and continue to suffer lingering and permanent damage — not to mention nurses and doctors from hospitals in hard-hit areas that have been overrun.

On the other side of the spectrum are those who find data points to shame people for not wanting to wear masks or watch the economy crumble amid lockdowns. Instead of responding with a dialogue about what we should or shouldn’t be doing, about where the masks help and when they don’t, about how we can avoid lockdowns with other measures, it’s another all-or-nothing response. If you don’t want to shut everything down again or if you don’t see the logic in wearing a mask if you’re outside and no one else is around, someone on the left is there to vilify you. You’re selfish and don’t care whether people die.

If we’re ever going to heal our discourse, the treatment begins with two conclusions from Doyle:

  • More humility could stem the tide of narcissism and the decline of empathy that has taken root in recent years. In other words, be willing to see when you’re wrong and admit it.
  • Schools need to do a lot more to train students in the art of critical thinking. Arguing and calling people names is not critical thinking.

In the words of Edward R. Murrow: “Good night, and good luck.”

Yellow square with the text "How to be an elitist prick (a diagram" next to a yellow and aqua triangle. The word "You" is at the top of the triangle. Beneath that is "All the people who do things differently (crossed out), than you do things (crossed out), and wrong."
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We’re Better Than Our Online Personas

Amid despair over our broken civil discourse, I’ve found reason and perspective in recent American history.

Mood Music:

Buried beneath all the news about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death and the resulting political chaos was an article about her friendship with then-fellow Justice Antonin Scalia before his death in 2016.

Scalia’s son, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, described the friendship this way:

They were both New Yorkers, close in age, and liked a lot of the same things: the law, teaching, travel, music and a meal with family and friends. They had a bond, I think, in that they both grew up as outsiders – to different degrees – to the elites who had ruled the country: she as a Jew and woman, he as a Catholic and Italian American.

They shared a passion for opera and even once appeared together as extras in the Washington National Opera’s opening night production of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. 

This, even as they passionately and consistently opposed each other over law. Scalia once quipped: “What’s not to like, except her views on the law.”

Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg seated next to each other during an interview. Both are smiling at an unseen person.

American history is full of such friendships. Sen. Ted Kennedy, the liberal lion from dark-blue Massachusetts, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, a devout Mormon from the red state of Utah, were close friends. President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill were fierce political adversaries who still bonded over their Irish heritage and a love of jokes.

These friendships reflect what many of us experience on a personal level. We have friends and relatives who have political beliefs opposite ours. We argue a lot, often heatedly and in public places like Facebook and Twitter.

But when it comes to the health, safety and happiness of our families and fellow friends, politics takes a back seat.

We laugh at the same jokes and Facebook memes. We delight in the same movies and music many times. And we come to the rescue when someone in our orbit is in trouble. Who they’re voting for doesn’t matter in those moments.

As ugly as this political season has been — compounded by months of pandemic and civil unrest — we haven’t lost the ability to rise above politics and be good to one another. I see abundant examples daily of personal bonds being stronger than the things that divide us.

It’s just easy to lose sight of that when we spend too much time on social media. I’m guilty of that.

We’ll need those bonds to survive the next few months, which promise to be as hard as recent months — maybe even more so. The coming election will almost certainly be rich with chaos. The pandemic will continue to dog us. The economy will take a long time to recover.

Our empathy for each other might be our greatest weapon against the darkness.

One of my friends from the information security community, Don A. Bailey, captured the things that matter most in a recent Facebook post:

No matter which side you’re on, half the country is going to have a very bad 2020 in November. Now, more than ever, is time for empathy, patience, and communication with friends whom think differently than you. Your candidate won’t save the country, only we can, one deescalation at a time.

Thanks for that perspective, Don.

Call me a hopeless optimist. Call me naive. But I truly believe our better angels will overcome the ugliness of 2020.

There are more than enough Ginsburg–Scalia friendships in America to carry us through to better days.

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Observations of a Centrist

When it comes to politics, I claim neither purity nor perfection. Mine are simply a set of beliefs collected through life experiences and a vigorous read of history.

One thing I’ve always tried to do is be open, adjusting those beliefs in the face of fresh evidence. Such evidence has come my way more times than I care to admit. To me, the ability to be flexible in this arena is necessary for personal growth, evolution and my usefulness to society.

I spent part of my teens and early 20s as a libertarian before swinging the other way toward left-wing liberalism.

By the time I reached my 30s and since then, my political leanings have remained mainly in the middle. I vote for Democrats and Republicans, depending on who I think shows the best ability to lead.

I like a vigorous debate between those on the left and right. When the country faces a crisis like the current pandemic, I prefer that leaders be willing to cast aside parts of their ideology and meet the other side halfway to do what’s necessary.

Most people agree that the current situation is dangerous — a new virus we’ve failed to get accurate measurements on, resulting in people forced to stay home, keep their distance and freeze the economy.

Most people agree Congress must pass another massive emergency aid package as the economy plunges to depths unseen since The Great Depression.

Most people agree we need far more extensive testing and that without a more accurate count of who is sick and who isn’t, most other data points are useless.

But the public discourse has become overrun by people from both political extremes.

Many on the far right are shouting that continued social distancing and mask mandates are acts of tyranny, that this is local and national government grabbing power for power’s sake.

Many on the left argue that those who want social distancing to end are heartless tyrants themselves, willing to sacrifice grandma and countless other lives out of a selfish need to restart the economy.

We continue to argue and vilify each other. This scenario is now playing out against the backdrop of the 2020 presidential election. People at one extreme believe universal mail-in voting is the only way to stay safe. People at the other extreme insist mail-in voting is a recipe for massive fraud and will undermine the accuracy of the election.

President Trump, who has skillfully played the emotions of both extremes like a master conductor, claims mail-in voting will rig the election against him, even as his policies undermine the U.S. Postal Service, increasing the likelihood that things will go wrong.

As I sit here in the center, it looks to me like the far left and far right are easily played, becoming outraged at the drop of a dime. If you disagree with the far left, you’re a fascist too dumb to know what’s correct. Trump knows how easily riled they are and presses their buttons effectively. The far-right casts aside reality not because they lack intellect but because they’re convinced they’ve been lied to over and over again. Yet some of the things they’ve been willing to entertain as truth boggles the minds of centrists like me.

Against that backdrop, here’s what I believe:

  • Mail-in voting is no different than absentee voting, which has mostly worked for decades. If it worries you, spend less time crying foul and more time demanding that the postal service receive all necessary resources to make this work.
  • Americans are spoiled when it comes to election results. Except for 2000, we’ve had an outcome on election night for decades. To make mail-in voting accurate, we should be willing to wait weeks and even a month or two for careful counting and recounting. Then, it will be harder to discount the election outcome’s legitimacy, no matter who wins.
  • Though I think mail-in voting can work, I also believe in-person voting can as well. Most of us make regular trips to the grocery store, where we spend a good hour (I do, anyway). Voting can be a quicker process, if everything possible is done to provide enough polling places and move people along. You just follow the same rules as you do with every other outing. Mask up and don’t linger.
  • With a hybrid approach, we can have a fair election.
  • The government has grown rotten and we’ve been lied to repeatedly. If the government tells you something is necessary, it’s not the act of an uncaring person to be skeptical. In fact, it’s a healthy reaction.
  • But it’s not enough to sit around and bitch about it. People of all political leanings must demand more transparent government. That’s a cause as worthy of the kind of protest we’ve seen with Black Lives Matter (peaceful protest, not the looting and vandalism that rightly sparked outrage). As the late John Lewis used to say, some things are worth causing “good trouble” for.
  • The Founding Fathers built this nation to avoid extreme outcomes. Checks and balances demands compromise.
  • It’s fine, even appropriate, to look on government officials with skepticism. Both parties have done things to make the American experience a terrible one in this regard. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — a Democrat — is often lauded as an example of good leadership in the pandemic but some of his early decisions were disastrous, particularly his order to put COVID-19 patients in nursing homes, which infected and killed people who might still be with us today. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — a Republican — refused early on to institute safety measures. Florida is now a hotbed of sickness and death.
  • Some claim the pandemic itself is a conspiracy and a scam. It doesn’t take a genius to see that when there are millions of sick and dead people out there it’s real. I know several people who got sick and at least one who died.

The only way America will endure is if many more people meet in the middle and cast aside tribalism for the greater good. That means doing or not doing things that would seem appropriate in normal times.

These are not normal times.

"American Rag Doll" by Sharane Wild
“American Rag Doll” by Sharane Wild

Editor’s note: Prints of “American Ragdoll” are for sale, with all proceeds being donated to the Elizabeth Stone House in support of survivors of domestic violence in the Boston area. If you’d like your own print, email sharanewild@gmail.com.

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Memes That Divide Us

In my recent post, “The Corrosion of Public Discourse,” I started with examples of how the American conversation has grown rotten. To recap, people:

  • Share memes without checking to see if they are based on truth or misinformation
  • Talk past each other rather than to each other
  • Slice, dice and distort data points to fit their viewpoint
  • Talk down to other people and confuse this as an act of virtue

A day after I published that, one of my Facebook connections posted a meme that exemplified those points:

Table with the title, Vote Wisely in 2020. The left column lists 20 items Democrats are supposed to be for, many of them false or exaggerated. The right column lists 20 items Republicans are supposed to be for, many of them false or exaggerated.

To me, it’s just another meme that plays fast and loose with the truth and paints huge parts of the population with the same brush. All the standard tropes are present. In this case we have a conservative saying they’re a beacon of virtue, a champion of freedom and the rule of law. Everyone else is shit.

I know just as many Republicans as I do Democrats. Some people genuinely try to solve serious problems with an exchange of ideas, but neither group neatly fits the columns assigned to them. Both groups have faults and virtues.

America has often been at its best when people on both sides compromise for the greater good. I personally prefer that to “us vs. them” memes like the one above.

And so, a suggestion:

If you’re going to make your point with a meme, fine. I do it all the time.

But before sharing, perhaps it’s not a bad idea to examine whether it truly aligns with reality, or if it’s merely painting huge groups of diverse people with the same sloppy brush.

I’ll try to do that, too.

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The Villains Aren’t Who You Think They Are

“Don’t assume villainy where it is merely different goals.

Andy Ellis, CSO, Akamai

The conference presentation of a friend and former boss has been on my mind as I’ve watch people argue about how we should conduct ourselves during a pandemic.

Mood Music:

Andy Ellis is CSO at Akamai, where I probably leaned more about the technical nuts and bolts of security in three years than I had in the previous decade of writing about it as a tech journalist. His presentation, “Humans Are Awesome/Terrible at Risk Management” covers how people make decisions concerning risk.

He uses the OODA loop decision-making model developed by U.S. Air Force Col. John Boyd to explain why humans are “awesome” at risk management.

The model frames decision-making as a repeating cycle of observing what’s happening, orienting (filtering what’s happening through past experiences and values), deciding what to do next and acting on that decision.

I’ve tried to apply the OODA loop to my personal and professional actions of late and have mapped out the experience in a recent post.

Humans are horrible at risk management! How are we even still around?And yet, we are still around. Humans are awesome at risk management; we’re now the dominant species on the planet.

Andy Ellis

Andy cites humanity’s advantages in making rapid, generally correct risk choices, even when those choices seem baffling to others. To understand the other person’s decisions, he suggests:

  1. Unpacking how risk choices that appear unreasonable from the outside may not be.
  2. Learning how to identify the hidden factors in someone’s risk choice that most influence it.
  3. Finding out how to help guide people to risk choices that you find more favorable.

I’ve been trying to follow those suggestions as I navigate the seemingly endless arguments on social media about how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

On myriad Facebook threads, people share articles and make statements that fall into one of two camps:

  • That in a health emergency like this, the best decision is to stay home and minimize the virus’ spread — thus saving lives
  • That the current lockdowns are tyranny: massive, fear-driven overreactions that have allowed authorities to exert unprecedented control over the masses

My own views are somewhere in the middle. I believed the lockdowns necessary at the beginning to slow the spread long enough to give hospitals time to bulk up on supplies and workers to take care of everyone who is sick. I also believed it necessary to buy us time to ramp up testing so we’d have a better picture of who was infected and who wasn’t.

Three months in, we’ve slowed the spread in places but don’t appear much better off. We don’t have nearly enough data points to know what we’re dealing with. I’ve begun to question the wisdom of staying locked down, thinking instead that we must figure out a way to re-open carefully and learn to live in a pandemic without staying seized up.

Along the way I’ve found myself exasperated by how people in the two camps above have vilified each other. Camp 1 brands Camp 2 as a bunch of selfish right-wing thugs who care more about their economic pursuits than protecting grandma. Camp 2 sees Camp 1 as a bunch of government-controlled sheep who submit to tyranny as easily as past generations submitted to Nazi and Soviet subjugation.

One good friend, from Camp 2, suggested that those who support the lockdowns support tyranny and should renounce their American citizenship. I called him out on that. Another friend in Camp 1 repeatedly attacked people on my wall for being OK with people dying. I rarely unfriend people I disagree with but did so in her case.

Along the way, I keep coming back to what Andy said: “Don’t assume villainy where it is merely different goals.”

It’s good advice.

Most of us have rigorously thought-out reasons for staying home or arguing for a re-opening. We all weigh the risks on criteria colored by our personal experiences. There is no villainy in that.

People will believe what they will believe and act on it. Their intent is good, though sometimes distorted by a lack of reliable data.

In the weeks and months to come, I hope for more common ground.

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Nothing Brings Out the Self-Righteous Like a Terrorist Attack

Whenever we see terrible things like the ISIS attacks in Paris, something happens on Facebook: Many people become experts on religion and politics, and still more people get anal when people don’t observe a tragedy exactly as they would. Terror attacks bring out the best in some people. In others, it brings out self-righteous tomfoolery.

Mood music:

https://youtu.be/IN9REo4Le6g

Whatever your political and religious beliefs, the attacks prove that your agenda is the correct one. One guy posted so many memes about Obama being a secret agent for ISIS and the so-called Muslim brotherhood that I almost believed it after a while.

If you had the French flag superimposed over your profile picture, you were a racist for ignoring the attacks that happened a day before in Lebanon. You were an anti-Semite because you didn’t include Israel, which is attacked every day.

If you tried to make the point that terrorists don’t represent the whole of Islam, you got shouted down by the right wing for not accepting that Islam is in itself an evil, savage religion.

If you dared to point out that there is in fact evil in the world and that the bad guys must be destroyed, you got shouted down by the left wing for being intolerant and politically incorrect.

Where do my views fit into all this? As usual, somewhere in the middle.

I don’t believe Islam is in itself an evil religion. I know a lot of people who follow that faith and they are decent people who work hard and want what’s best for their communities. But I don’t think we can ignore the fact that far too many bad guys are twisting Islam to their evil purposes. People of Islam need to be a lot more vocal about it than they have been.

I’m not a gun-toting NRA supporter and I don’t buy into the rhetoric about liberals taking the good guys’ guns away. But I don’t think gun-control laws have helped all that much, since bad people continue to get around those laws.

I believe there is evil in the world, and there always has been. When bad guys plot to kill innocents, the good guys need to kill them first.

I believe that the best thing we can do to make a positive difference in the world is be good to other people. I believe that being good to people requires a whole lot more than putting slogans and statements on Facebook. It requires spending one’s time to do things for others, whether it’s helping them deal with a work-related challenge or a crisis in confidence and faith or helping them get food and other things a lot of us take for granted.

I believe that self-righteous people are generally assholes who have nothing better to do with their time than to put down others who disagree with them. If I ever get like that, I hope someone slaps me down hard.

I also think the vast majority of people are good. When danger strikes, we’ve seen many acts of compassion time and again.

That’s why I still have hope, even when the self-righteous pollute the Internet.

Candelight vigil for Paris

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Hope and Happiness Amid a Government Shutdown

Forget about the effect the government shutdown has on mental health services; government mental health services suck anyway.

Instead, let’s focus on keeping ours head on straight when political horror stories send our fear and anxiety into orbit.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/lpRzYEHwnUo

I mentioned last week how I used to latch onto world events as if my life depended on it. TV media reports political squabbles as it would report about war: loud graphics, chilling music. Coverage of the government shutting down at midnight was no different.

I don’t want to minimize the impact. A lot of good people get screwed when the government shuts down. Family trips to national parks are ruined. If you need a passport renewed in time for, say, a honeymoon abroad, you’re likely throwing things across a room about now. Some of my conservative friends are making comments about how nobody will notice the shutdown and how, as a result, they’ll have proof that we don’t need government. Some of that is true. But some of that is hyperbole, too.

All that is beside the point. Here’s why I’m not quaking in my boots right now.

I realized a long time ago that I can’t tie my happiness to the success or failure of government. I used to believe that electing the right people would lead to a sunny future for me and everyone else.

But our leaders disappoint us again and again. Democrat or Republican, it doesn’t matter. Politicians are far more interested in keeping their jobs than standing for the greater good. To some extent that’s always been the case, yet it seems worse today. A few years ago, I realized I’d have to find my hope and happiness someplace else.

In the process, I found that the main components of that happiness were in front of me all along: loving family members, loyal friends and work I could take satisfaction in. I also realized it was completely in my power to be loving and loyal to others as well. That support system keeps the world spinning, and no folly of government could ruin that.

We’re all imperfect individuals. While I try to be a good father, husband and friend, I’ve done a lousy job getting along with some family members. And while I’ve exercised my absolute power to have a healthy, fit body and mind, I’ve also done my fair share of abusing both, consequences be damned. The government hasn’t played much of a role in either of those things.

Realizing that elected officials could only have a minimal role in my day-to-day life set me free in a lot of ways, for better or worse. The government shutdown isn’t bothering me in the slightest.

But that’s just my personal experience. If you do depend on government services, I’m sorry you have to go through this.

Super Broken Government

Image source: CNN.com

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Why This Catholic Supports Marriage Equality

Yesterday many friends changed their Facebook profile pics to a red box with two horizontal lines in the center in support of marriage equality. I did as well, though I was more punk rock about it, selecting a red box with four vertical lines (the logo for the band Black Flag).

Mood music:

[spotify:track:4kFfFe38CRVnTsakUTL4E4]

I doubt all this online activism will influence the US Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage. The justices march to their own drummer. They get to serve for life, free of the political pressure that comes with standing for election. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we all follow our conscience. Mine tells me that the government has absolutely no business defining what marriage — and, more to the point, love — should be about.

That’s at odds with the beliefs of the Catholic Church and I am a devout Catholic. So why go against my church?

For starters, going against the church does not mean going against your faith. I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins and that I owe it to Him to earn that salvation. I haven’t yet. Not even close. But it’s what I strive for. As for Christ’s teachings, the thing that always sticks with me is that we’re all sinners and have no business judging others when our own hands are dirty.

I’ve long believed that the old men who set the rules in the Holy See are wrong about how they approach homosexuality. There’s this notion that a person wakes up one day and decides being gay is a great lifestyle choice. All the people I’ve known over the years who fought against and hid their sexuality have shown me that’s bullshit. They didn’t get a choice. Then they were slaves to shame, escaping through false personas, drugs, and suicide.

Those I’ve known could only live and be a blessing to those around them once they came clean. I’ve seen a lot of friends and family come clean and lead beautiful lives, and I love them dearly for it.

For more on my take on homosexuality, see:

“Gay Haters Or Just Idiots?“

“Racists AND Idiots“

“Depression and Being Gay“

“One More Thing About Being Depressed and Gay…“

My religious beliefs are beside the point, though.

This country is supposed to have a separation between church and state, and that’s for good reason. We’re a nation of many faiths, and we all deserve the freedom to worship God — or to not — as we see fit. If two people love each other and are law-abiding citizens who pay their taxes, the government has absolutely no business making judgments on how such love should be defined. Love is love. If two people of the same sex choose to keep house together, they should be entitled to the same rights straight couples enjoy.

Feel free to disagree.

Marriage equality, punk rock style

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The Boy Scouts of America Acted Cowardly

Yesterday I opined that the Boy Scouts of America should allow gays into the organization. I suggested that the organization was being cowardly by leaving it up to individual chapters to do the right thing, but a friend disagreed.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:3SHPJOuQ357m5S1AjyNpKU]

Wrote my friend:

At a local level, the scouts are heavily supported by churches and religious groups. An all-out and immediate change would result in a mass exodus of sponsoring organizations, which would lead many troops packs to shut down. By taking this approach, the scouts are looking at evolution vs. revolution, which is probably the best we can expect from a 100-year old organization and which would allow new sponsoring groups to step up and take the places of any group that does not want to continue its association with the Scouts. While not a perfect solution, I think it’s actually the most workable in the short term.

Shortly after he sent that message, the Boy Scouts of America’s executive board voted to put off its decision, sending out this curious statement:

After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy. To that end, the executive board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting’s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers’ work on a resolution on membership standards. The approximately 1,400 voting members of the national council will take action on the resolution at the national meeting in May 2013.

It’s curious because Boy Scouts has already spent years kicking this issue around. My friend responded to the announcement with this follow-up email to me: “Now I agree with your cowardly comment.”

This isn’t rocket science. It’s about recognizing that people come in all stripes, and that we all deserve the opportunity to make a positive difference. The Scouts is a fabulous resource for helping people reach their full potential so they can contribute something positive to society. Keeping certain people out because they’re gay, something that’s more a matter of mental and physical development than personal choice, is wrong.

The Boy Scouts are assuming, just as the military did, that a person’s sexual orientation will prevent them from focusing on their duties. That’s horse shit.

The national organization had a golden opportunity to set an important example and allow in people who could really contribute to society with Scout training. It hasn’t wasted the opportunity yet, but yesterday’s delay was embarrassing and shameful.

Boy Scout Discrimination Comic

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When Conspiracy Theorists Become Bullies

Conspiracy theorists usually don’t bother me. Hell, I even subscribe to the notion that Lee Harvey Oswald had help assassinating JFK. But a new breed of conspiracy theorist has emerged in recent years. They make threats and act like the schoolyard bully, and they make my skin crawl.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:0JhAglbb3Ca9Cp2OflPKPi]

The clowns who argued that 9/11 was an inside job are one example, though to my knowledge they never actually threatened anyone. Now there’s the Sandy Hook truther movement, a band of conspiracy theorists who believe the government secretly orchestrated the murder of 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, so the public would support efforts to gut the Second Amendment. They take things in a dangerous, cruel direction.

They are the bullies in the schoolyard, the thugs hiding in the alley waiting to pounce.

One of their victims is Gene Rosen, a man who took in six little survivors of Sandy Hook the morning of the massacre. Rosen lives close enough to the school that he heard the gunshots. He found the children at the end of his driveway, and they told him they couldn’t go back to school because their teacher was dead.

He took the children into his home, gave them food, juice and toys, and called their parents. He sat with them as they described the horrible events.

He became a target of the Sandy Hook truther gang because he had been interviewed by the media. The truther thugs believe the government is paying actors to pose as eyewitnesses.

The Salon website describes how Rosen has suffered at the hands of this group:

“I don’t know what to do,” sighed Gene Rosen. “I’m getting hang-up calls, I’m getting some calls, I’m getting emails with, not direct threats, but accusations that I’m lying, that I’m a crisis actor, ‘how much am I being paid?’” Someone posted a photo of his house online. There have been phony Google+ and YouTube accounts created in his name, messages on white supremacist message boards ridiculing the “emotional Jewish guy,” and dozens of blog posts and videos “exposing” him as a fraud. One email purporting to be a business inquiry taunted: “How are all those little students doing? You know, the ones that showed up at your house after the ‘shooting’. What is the going rate for getting involved in a gov’t sponsored hoax anyway?”

As I said, I generally have no problem with conspiracy theorists. Most share their beliefs without hurting anyone. And there’s no question that the US government has engaged in conspiracies and illegal activity. Did the government orchestrate this massacre? Although you never know, I think there are people out there who hate Obama so much that they’ll believe just about any theory where the president is cast as a brutal dictator.

If we ever see evidence that the truther gang is right, Americans will show the same outpouring of anger that has led to the downfall of many a government official.

But whether they’re right or wrong, conspiracy theorists have no right to threaten or harass anyone. If you think the government is behind something terrible, speak out and search for evidence. That’s your right as an American citizen.

But when you limit others’ rights in favor of your own, you become just as evil as the empire you’re fighting against.

Below: Gene Rosen (Credit: AP/Mary Altaffer)

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