It was Ben Bradley, the famed editor of The Washington Post, who once described one of the roles of a muckraking newspaper is to expose “low deeds [done] in high places” … and a noble role that is. The very foundation of our American democratic principles rest on the rock-solid notion of a free and unfettered press. That’s why it’s codified in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
With that said, I doubt if our Founding Fathers meant for freedom of speech to do damage to the citizenry … but that could be what is once again happening in America … and indeed, right here in Cuyahoga County. More on that later.
Let’s face facts: Not all of the citizens of our great nation possess equipoise … which is just a nice way of saying there’s a certain percentage of our fellow countrymen (and women) who are a few bricks shy of a full load … the elevator isn’t going all the way to the top floor … in other words they’re as crazy as loons. But the scary part is that some are mentally poised on the edge of the abyss … and it doesn’t take too much at all to drive them over into oblivion. That’s what happened last week in Arizona when a deranged man shot Congresswoman Giffords and killed six other citizens.
And what it takes sometimes to set off these walking time bombs is for the commentary and chatter to become too polarizing, too vitriolic, too hate filled. For the gun nuts to start placing the images of people they disagree with in the telescopic crosshairs of high-powered rifles.
The pathetic postings by anonymous bloggers (which I never read BTW) hereabouts has turned potentially dangerous: A recent post by some wingnut going by the handle of “beecher1” called for all of the newly elected members of the county council to be executed. That goes beyond the Pale and into a criminal threat against a public official.
For the safety of our county officials the FBI needs to identify the sender of this posting and pay him a visit to insure he does not have the wherewithal to carry out his threat. Next, similar to what the crazies did in the abortion debate, these neo-crazies will be publishing the addresses of people they don’t agree with in an effort to further intimidate them. Enough is enough.
Free speech has its limitations: The example most often used is that “no one has the right to yell ‘FIRE’ in a crowded theater,” and likewise, no one should have the right to engage in incendiary speech that is designed to incite people to violence, and then deny that was their intent: That’s called “throwing a rock and then hiding your hand.”
Back to Cuyahoga County. It’s entirely predictable — coming as we are off the biggest scandal in county history — that the media would go overboard in examining every move or perceived misstep by the newly elected county officials. I think those officials knew this when they threw their hats into the ring. But, this watchdog thing can be taken too far … the media can push some of those mentally fragile people over the edge.
The new president of the County Council, C. Ellen Conally, who has been in public life for decades, feels the need to hire a bodyguard. Now some might pooh-pooh that necessity, but then their lives are not the ones being threatened. I’ve written this before but here it is again: The media can, in spite of its well-meaning intentions, create an environment where no quality persons wants to serve in public offices; then we’ll be left with only buffoons, wannabes and Tea Party types.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.