Many of us know two things. That our constitutional rights are not absolute and in exercising those rights they need to be exercised responsibly.
If we do not want the government to place limitations on those rights it is up to us to protect them by acting responsibly.
There is no basis for Leigh Bosse (Sunday Monitor Forum, Jan. 24) to suggest that Katie Couric is a spokesperson for the Democratic Party.
For Bosse to write that a private publishing company has an obligation to publish an author, that a privately owned store is required to market your products, that private messaging platforms must allow you access regardless of what you say is both bosh and hypocritical.
Aren’t conservatives the first to yell foul and sue if the government forces a bakery to bake a cake for someone the bakery owner doesn’t like or disagrees with? Is Bosse now saying that the government should force private businesses to do business with everyone who walks in their front door? Or is he saying a business should only be forced by the government to do business with conservatives?
Bosse goes on to quote Pastor Niemoller about the dangers of not speaking up for what is just and right. Is Bosse equating this to the speech during the siege of the Capitol building? He should be able to understand that threatening to hang the vice president is not protected speech.
Since when hasn’t the Republican Party considered themselves the law and order party? Haven’t statistics shown most terrorist attacks in our country have come from domestic groups? Why wouldn’t you want those whose job it is to protect us from enemies foreign and domestic to determine to what extent domestic terrorism threatens us? Or should they only be assigned to investigate those who Bosse doesn’t agree with?
And finally Bosse quotes George Orwell and warns about lying and erasing history. There is a difference between rewriting history to fit a false narrative and including facts from our past that have previously not been brought forward.
All of us need to be honest and call out anyone when they act in a manner that puts both property and human life in danger. But is Bosse unable to differentiate between groups like QAnon, the Proud Boys, and those with legitimate concerns?
I have to wonder where Bosse has been these last four or five years. Lies from Trump. Incitement of violence. Trump’s assertions that he is the only true leader, he is the only one with answers to your problems. How is it that Bosse has cast a blind eye for all this time and suddenly exclaims he has seen the light and the problem is Katie Couric?
(Allan Herschlag lives in Concord.)