It’s impossible to disagree with the philosophy Morgan W. Brown expresses in his letter “On banning political discourse.” Unlike Russia and other countries, our government cannot, with limited exceptions, censor speech, and our culture is largely against censorship. As Mr. Brown says, banning any speech is a slippery slope.
But do we need it all the time and everywhere? There would be justified outrage if VTDigger didn’t accept non-abusive, non-libelous letters from all sides of debates. The same holds for New York Times comments.
If you want to have a picture of yourself on Facebook standing by an actor in a Putin mask, which a local character does, you have the right to do it even though it shows you like genocidal dictators. If you want to allow someone to say on your Facebook page, as another local does, that, apparently laughably, Biden thinks that Russia attacked Ukraine, you have a right to do it.
It’s good to find out that you are an, hmm, …. ignoramus. If you want to spread dangerous disinformation that the Covid vaccine has killed hundreds of thousands of people, which another local did, even in VTDigger, which quickly deleted it, maybe it’s another matter.
But Mr. Brown is concerned about political speech in Front Porch Forum. His basic position is clearly defensible.
As others have said, the response to lies and nonsense is more speech, not less, so when encountering it publicly, we have an obligation to respond. However, the idea that I would read someone saying “Fauci is a fraud,” which a local guy who thinks he’s a doctor did on Facebook, when I’m just trying to find some free manure, or wishing to lend someone a groundhog trap, is too much. I really don’t want to have to explain patiently that these people are full of, well, the same stuff.
If Front Porch Forum can remove all talk of politics and concentrate on local meetings, public services, heat pumps, manure and groundhog traps, so much the better. There are plenty of places to vent one’s spleen.
Kem Phillips
Cavendish
