Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive
Each of us meets somebody at some point that we know we'll never forget.
I met another one this week, and I know I'll never forget him. And it was because of a couple of things he said as we talked while waiting for a ceremony to begin Monday at Fort Ritchie.
Gideon Kantor is a Jewish immigrant, one of the Ritchie Boys, who with his family managed to stay a step ahead of the Nazis as they raced across Europe to escape. Their journey took them from their native Austria to France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Spain and Portugal to Cuba, and eventually to the United States.
Here, he finished his secondary education, enlisted in the Army and became a naturalized citizen. He'd left Europe as an Austrian refugee and went back as an American soldier during the Normandy invasion to help us defeat Adolf Hitler.
One of the things that struck me about Gideon Kantor was how often he expressed his gratitude to the U.S. government for giving him the opportunity to do that. He understood that his freedom was a privilege, and he cherished it.
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The other thing I won't forget concerned his family members who didn't get out. They had been victims of the Holocaust, murdered by the Nazi regime. He was painfully aware of those who claim the Holocaust didn't happen, and deeply hurt every time he heard of someone who said it.
Because he knows it's a lie.
What he knew about the Nazis was not just what drove him to fight, but what made him so grateful to be here. And to serve the United States.
He mentioned that in some parts of Europe, one could be fined for denying the Holocaust. And indeed, there usually are consequences for spreading falsehoods. But sadly, those consequences aren't always suffered by the perpetrators.
The parents from Newtown, Conn., for example. As if burying little baby kids weren't unbearable enough, for a decade these grieving families were accosted by people who believed the lie that their children's deaths weren't real; that it was all some elaborate, gruesome hoax to deprive Americans of gun rights.
In the past few years, the number of threats or incidents of violence against public officials, poll workers and others have skyrocketed because people believe lies that are amplified in the echo chamber of social media. And repeated by people of influence who know better but shamelessly and shamefully do it anyway.
In election years, lies and half-truths get volleyed at breakneck speed. And sadly, there are those who will take certain politicians at their word without checking out what they say or really considering whether they're doing the jobs they've got, if they already hold some public office, as long as they use the right buzzwords.
Many cast votes on that flimsy foundation. And we all have to live with the results.
We are blessed in the United States to have freedom of speech. It has, in fact, been the basis of my livelihood for my entire adult life.
But this right is not absolute — which is why we have the libel laws I had to learn backwards, forwards and sideways to earn my graduate degree — and should never, ever, ever be abused.
We do our best to always tell you the truth in our reporting; being human, we sometimes make mistakes. But we do not ever intentionally spread misinformation. You might not like what you read, but that doesn't make it untrue.
Purposely spreading false information is always, always dangerous. (And yes, that includes reposting something you see on social media but don't bother to check out.) False information is what turned a swath of people in civilized Europe against an entire race of human beings. With horrific, murderous results.
A whole generation was displaced and millions killed in the violence that ensued, including a member of my family and maybe members of yours.
Did we learn nothing from that?
If this is to be the country Gideon Kantor came to cherish, we must have a respect and reverence for truth. Otherwise, we risk drowning in a sea of lies — becoming weak and easy prey for rogue agents, both foreign and domestic.
The question is whether we care enough about our freedom of speech to refuse to abuse it, or to let the abuses of others go unchallenged.
Do we?
Tamela Baker is a Herald-Mail feature writer.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom to lie
