Letter to the Editor: Truth Shouldn’t Be Banned at Public Meetings
Imagine sitting in a public meeting where a man stands before a crowd and spouts falsehoods about Ukraine — and in that same audience sit three people from Ukraine. That’s what happened when Chip Howard addressed the Payson Tea Party, repeating baseless claims that Ukrainians are Nazis and parroting Russian propaganda. Not once did anyone ask the Ukrainians present for their perspective.
The Tea Party meeting became a textbook example of how lies thrive when truth is silenced. People who could clearly see through Howard’s misinformation quietly left, while those eager to hear unchallenged falsehoods stayed behind.
Our country once treated free speech as sacred — at least until the Trump era, when truth itself became the enemy. Nothing undermines free speech more than protecting liars from being questioned. In Payson, the Tea Party has mastered this choreography: dissenting voices are banned, and anyone who dares to challenge conspiracy theories is labeled “disruptive.”
Democracy depends on open dialogue and honest debate. When a public meeting becomes an echo chamber for propaganda, it’s not democracy — it’s indoctrination.
— Mike Fox, Payson
No comments:
Post a Comment