
{"id":15327,"date":"2011-01-20T09:54:08","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T14:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=15327"},"modified":"2011-01-20T09:54:08","modified_gmt":"2011-01-20T14:54:08","slug":"letter-words-hold-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/01\/20\/letter-words-hold-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Words hold power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stick and stones may break my bones \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n<p>How we all wish that clich\u00c3\u00a9 would hold its merit today. <\/p>\n<p>What has amazed and troubled me most is the swiftness in which we deftly attack with equally strong emotion. Having voted for Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mayor, Mark Chilton, I was floored by my public servant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s comment on Facebook regarding the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shooter, you probably think you did this for your country, but like Timothy McVeigh you are America&#8217;s worst enemy. You don&#8217;t deserve the kind of civilized trial and punishment that you will end up with. F*** you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>This was posted within hours after the shooting. It was that very first, succinct few sentences that left a searing impression. All the many words he wrote after that were not the ones that actually woke me in the middle of the night in immediate thought of our responsibility as human beings. <\/p>\n<p>In the context of this national event, we are all witness to the power of words, regardless of partisanship. The difference between the individual and the collective, no matter the size, is drastically diminished by the inherent infinite nature of the Internet. This leaves us exponentially burdened regarding free speech and, in this case, coupled with the scope of the impact of an elected official. This is an example of how one voice can become so quickly a widespread collective.<\/p>\n<p>I am not denying my mayor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s human right to emotional response. It is often difficult to separate the private person from the political one. It is the personal convictions that make up who we are, what we believe in and desire to promote.<\/p>\n<p>What we hope for is not always what we get. One could have hoped for a mayor that took a positive, unifying leadership role in the community. All is not lost, there is still time.<\/p>\n<p>I am not writing here to take a side or to point a finger of blame. My point is to shed light on the responsibility of the individual as part of the collective whole. Every situation presents us with an opportunity. The very same passion can empower us to do things differently if we afforded ourselves patience and observation, one of the hardest of things with which to task ourselves and most worthwhile in its success. <\/p>\n<p>Locally, let this be a reminder to us that words do hold power in the face of a larger, national tragedy. Let us not wield them so quickly as to be so na\u00c3\u00afve about the Internet, Facebook in particular. <\/p>\n<p>Carter Hubbard<em><br \/>\nCarrboro<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stick and stones may break my bones \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 How we all wish that clich\u00c3\u00a9 would hold its merit today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15327"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15421,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15327\/revisions\/15421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}