Mediaboss Marketing

I believe our First Amendment rights died a little bit on Monday. You dont have to follow or like Tucker Carlson of Fox or Don Lemon of CNN to understand they both say things that drive up blood pressures on both sides of the political spectrum. So when both were unceremoniously terminated by their employers we are left to wonder whether Sean Hannity and Joy Behar are next.

Jokes aside, without totally speculating on Tuckers departure, Foxs settlement with Dominion Voting Machines was likely a contributing factor.

That settlement alone, in my opinion, should have been decided in the courts and not by Fox caving into Dominions defamation lawsuit. Why? Because the First Amendment protects honestly held opinions even if they turn out not to be true. I frankly think that, because defamation suits are very difficult to prove, Fox could have prevailed in a court of law. But it rolled over to pressure.

Former Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist once said, Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea. That kind of explains why someone burning the American flag in front of the Supreme Court, while reprehensible in my opinion, is protected as free speech.

Heres another example: I really disagree intensely with virtually every word Carroll County Times opinion writer Tom Zirpoli puts on paper. That said, I will ALWAYS defend his right to say so many things I vehemently disagree with or even find over the top. Why? Because in our country it is and has always been his right to his opinion. Period!

Nationally, high-profile people are invited to campuses to speak to students on various topics and in recent times have been either shouted down without any civil give and take. In the case of champion swimmer Riley Gaines, she was literally attacked and driven into a classroom because she didnt want to compete against a trans-male athlete. Here again we have the death of common sense and civility.

Our country is very, very divided along political lines, and I dont see that changing anytime soon. News stations report the same events differently, just look at MSNBC and Newsmax. That explains why, if Donald Trump actually walked on water, the Washington Post would state that Trump did so because he couldnt swim, so he had to walk.

In the end, the whole issue can be summed up by what the late Sen. Patrick Moynihan, Democrat from New York, said. Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. How True!!!

Dave Price, Sykesville

On May 1, Taneytown will have its city election, and voters will have an opportunity to elect their next mayor. I enthusiastically encourage folks in Taneytown to vote for Daniel Haines for mayor.

I met Daniel back in 2019, and I was immediately impressed with what he had already accomplished in his young life. Professionally, he was working as an American Sign Language interpreter and he was enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard, and he still does both. Soon after I met him, he was elected to the Taneytown City Council.

Four years later, I have seen what Daniel has been able to achieve as a council member, and that is why I hope to see him sit in the mayors seat. When he is elected mayor, Daniel plans to focus on increasing economic development, improving infrastructure, enhancing public engagement, being a fiscal watchdog over the budget, preserving local history, and supporting the city police department.

When Daniel first told me earlier this year that he felt that Taneytown needed new leadership and that he was considering stepping up to serve his city in an even greater capacity, he also told me that he was about to leave for a two-month stint in Utah for mandatory National Guard training. Instead of being worried if this time spent away from home would hurt his campaign and his chances of becoming mayor, Daniel went off to Utah and performed his duty to our country.

And that, my friends, is Daniel a nutshell. Daniel Haines abides by the oaths he makes, and keeps his commitments. As your next mayor, you should expect him to serve the people who live and work in Taneytown with the same vigor and dedication.

On Monday, please remember to vote at the Taneytown Police Department between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. and please consider voting for Daniel Haines for mayor.

Chris Tomlinson, Melrose

Tomlinson is a Republican state delegate representing District 5, which include Taneytown.

This is in response to Tom Zirpolis piece with the headline Trump-appointed says it all; recent rulings prove it (Carroll County Times, April 13). I am not sure if Zirpoli is allowed to create his own headline. In my experience, we writers of the occasional letter to the editor are not.

Regardless, the gist of the article is about a current federal court case concerning the drug Mifepristone which is widely used as an abortifacient. He described the use and efficacy of the drug as follows. It blocks progesterone, a hormone needed for the fetus to grow. A second drug, Misoprostol, given a day or two later, causes cramping and bleeding to empty the uterus ... empty the uterus indeed.

So in other words, what Zirpoli is defending, is a drug that is deliberately used to starve an innocent, little human being to death, so that a second drug can expel his or her little, now dead body from his or her mothers womb. Defenders of abortion often say: its just a clump of cells.

You know what? You and I and Zirpoli are just a clump of cells. We are now simply bigger and less vulnerable clumps. We did not come from a fetus. We were a fetus after we were an embryo and before we were a newborn infant then toddler then kindergarten student, and so on.

Abortion is barbaric. Even the ancient Greeks understood this. They gave us the study of ethics, the idea of behaving according to what is right not wrong. They gave us the Hippocratic oath which binds physicians to: first of all, do no harm. That same oath specifically forbids prescribing drugs or devices that induce abortion.

Sadly we have a history in this great nation of being less than inclusive with respect to human rights. We fought a bloody war between the states to include all races. In the 20th century, an emergent womens movement was needed to give women the basic civil right to vote. It continued to give women and girls equal opportunity in areas such as sports, but it went terribly awry when it began to pit mother against unborn child.

I like to think that if I was writing a letter to the editor 170 years ago, I would be an abolitionist. Today, I am an abolitionist. My fellow clumps, I hope you will join me in opposition of the great national sin of abortion.

Michael Hurley, Eldersburg

I read your newspaper every day, and whenever I read one of Tom Zirpolis opinion pieces, I am hopeful hopeful that he will be evenhanded, logical, insightful. Sadly, this is seldom the case, as his viewpoint is unremittingly one-sided and myopic.

Several weeks ago he inveighed against Republican proposals to deal with Social Securitys projected financial collapse. In fact, he refused to cite any of their ideas or reasons in the proposals. How is that responsible journalism?

Many prescient citizens are very concerned, but nary a word about the details from Zirpoli. Most recently, his column vilified what he called Florida school censorship, taking Gov. Ron DeSantis to task for House Bill 999 that promotes a patriotic curriculum that does not distort significant political events. I see nothing wrong with not distorting political events.

Zirpoli might have showed equanimity by also mentioning the imbroglio at Stanford University, where an invited speaker was shouted down by law school students; or how parents in Loudoun County, Virginia, have been arrested or had the FBI visit their homes simply for protesting against a sexual abuse case that was covered up, or for an agenda that pushes gender identity curriculum, rather than materials that will prepare students for college.

I taught high school English in Maryland for 45 years and can assure you what is being covered in classrooms now is worlds away from what was traditional during my tenure. Even more troubling is this: I modeled my teaching on what I learned at Western Maryland College [now McDaniel, where Zirpoli holds court], where nearly every class was a sharing of ideas, a discussion where both sides were aired, discusses, assessed.

Respect and comity were the requirement. Even in ROTC classes in the late 1960s, when the Vietnam War was hotly controversial, the major who taught us let us bring up concerns, issues, controversies, never shutting down discussions, no matter how heated these discussions became.

How different from todays educational and political scene, where a single written or spoken word even someones preferred pronoun might offend someone results in outrage, vituperation, censorship by Democrats as well as Republicans. And by Zirpoli, especially. We readers keep waiting, hoping for a balanced discussion. So far, nada. Is this the zeitgeist of the Carroll County Times as well? A sad reflection of our current times. No Dr. Seuss? Good grief!

David Sampselle, Taneytown

Go here to read the rest:
With Carlson and Lemon firings, First Amendment takes hit - Baltimore Sun