Dear Editor:
Re: Just like Hitler? (Jan. 28).
Wayne Baker is guilty of the cardinal tactic all purveyors of extreme views take. They take an undeniable truth and then butcher it by false comparison and hyper overstatement.
Of course freedom of speech is a founding principle, defensible at all costs including the lives of patriots, but there is a world of difference between free speech and the advancement of false science, naked untruths and hate.
Our patriot defenders of free speech did not die so that people like Baker can be outraged that dangerous nonsense, alternative facts and hatred can’t be bandied about with impunity. They died to protect reasonable people having reasonable differences of opinion coming from facts, truth and discussions based on reality. Belief in extremism, lies and counter culture does not fall within that compass, and therein lies the blatant hyper overstatement.
His advancement of selective history is the totally false comparison. The last time I looked, the Wellington Advertiser was neither the Canadian government nor a Stalin/Hitler like autocrat with country-wide authority. The comparison is tenuous at best, and at worst fatuous. The Advertiser is a private news dispensing forum which is perfectly entitled to decide what it will publish and what it will not. If it decides not to publish vitriol and you don’t like it … then don’t read it. The worst elements of social media are your best bet.
And finally, may I suggest that the creation “of a type of pressure cooker” is far more likely caused by conspiracy theories and false flags, repeated ad nauseam by news “rags” and those totally uncontrolled and reprehensible social media outlets, whose repetition is turning words into the very “sword” Baker says he wants to avoid.
Jim Taylor,
Belwood