It’s that time of year again, a time to vote for our choices for City Council, a time to give campaign contributions, a time to invite neighbors over for coffee with the candidate to discuss local issues, a time to put up “vote for” signs and a time to write letters of support to the local newspapers. It is also a time when a few God-fearing and ethical pillars of the community “support” their candidates by resorting to character assassination, calumny, innuendo, scorn and derision to slime those candidates they do not support. It is as though they were compelled by some sinister, evil force (The Devil Made Me Do It!) to exhibit to the community that, as supporters, they have absolutely no interest in praising their own candidate’s virtues and could care less about exhibiting an ill-mannered, unethical lack of faimess and decency by smearing opposing candidates.
They are apparently unaware that they are unintentionally smearing their own candidate via guilt by association! They are also unaware that they are peeling away their masks of false selfrighteousness to display an ugly, self-centered, win-at-any-cost behavior that they profess to abhor in others when discussing politics with their neighbors and friends.
These slime birds never leam two very ego-abrading lessons: the mud you throw will never wash off your hands and people who have opinions differing from your own are not evil, they just see things differently than you do. Hey, that is why we call it a democracy. Effective debate, that healthy airing of issues in the public forum, only flourishes within the context of civility.
Ray Singer