To the Editor:
The Daily Sun ran a small article Thursday titled, “Sen. Tillis Looks to Make Roadblock for Protesters.” I am pleased that Senator Tillis is trying to prevent protesters from infringing on the rights of others. I believe that is a step in the right direction. However, I believe that there is a much better and more comprehensive solution that not only prevents protesters from infringing on the rights of others, but helps protesters get their message communicated more effectively at a much lower cost to both protesters and to the rest of society.
As you recall the protests (riots) over George Floyd’s death in 2020, allegedly from police brutality, cost many people their lives and did billions of dollars in property damage. Also, even if George Floyd was an angel and those charges were completely true and the cops were complete racists, where is the proportionality? Whenever Israel strikes back after being attacked, they always are accused of disproportionally striking back. I never heard any news articles or audio messages of disproportionality from the reaction to George Floyd’s death.
Obviously, what happened was not only a reaction to the George Floyd incident. The anger of the protesters (rioters) did not just come about from that one incident. It was a built-up hatred that was just waiting for spark. The incident was just a pretext for what the protesters (rioters) wanted to do.
I believe most of built-up hatred comes from not having an open discussion about things that are perceived as unfair. It has become obvious that we have extensive censorship of opposite viewpoints while one side is able to present an unchallengeable narrative or position. We see this in education, media, government and in religion. It comes from the ability to control the message. Basically, all contested issues are two-sided issues. What we need is to have representatives from both sides debate the issue. We need agreement that those representatives truly represent each side.
To qualify as a protest group, the group would have to be large to make the debate worthwhile. The government would pay for air time for the debate and also make sure moderators would represent both sides. This is a much better way for the protesters to get their concise message across broadly. At the same time the group narrative would be scrutinized so they couldn’t just communicate an unopposed false narrative. By doing this, the truth or best narrative would dominate and nobody would feel that they were not being heard. This would alleviate much of the hate and some may even realize they are promoting the wrong side of the issue.
When a false narrative is being spread, all we have to do is the challenge it with the truth. To prevent a true narrative from being spread, it has to be labeled mis or dis information. It is amazing in this age of high-tech communications, we have the most censorship of truth, yet false narratives can’t be challenged without painful repercussions! So much for progress!
Bill Nitardy
Village of Sunset Pointe
