FREE BLOG LIFE

Presidential Candidate John Edwards recently discovered the trial by fire nature of the blogosphere. Melissa McEwan and Amanda Marcotte, hired by Edwards' staff came under scrutiny from Catholics and conservatives who asserted McEwan and Marcotte's opinions on the Church's stand on abortion and homosexuality as being anti-catholic. The ladies have since apologized for any misconceptions as to their beliefs, holding that they are not anti-Catholic.

The bottom line truth in this equation is that in America people have opinions and technology has allowed a quick and accessible expression of a multitude of views that will almost always be offensive to one or more of the diverse groupings that make up American society. Free speech is the life's blood of a healthy democracy seeking to be functional in regard to resident participation. For democracy to be more than theory people must be involved in its dissemination. Period. While the Catholic church and other conservative groups have every right to take offense to the statements of bloggers, traditional journalist's or "others" in general, I don't know how much effectiveness their is in berating McEwan and Marcotte into an apology. It seems the more effective action to take is to utilize their free speech and educate people on the nature of the church's stance on the hot button issues that are always ready to polarize a free society.

I like what I've heard from Edwards up until now, but this blog-debacle has me looking at him sideways. One, any candidate has to know who his campaign staff is hiring to represent them; particularly when those hires are coming from a cyberspace that has a blog outpost on every domain way station. Two, an apology from his bloggers is fine, but the truth is their opinions are their opinions and they are entitled to them. Disagreement is also part of the life's blood of democracy. Perhaps an apology about the way McEwen and Marcotte stated their opinions could have been in order, but politics as usual, in other words, a forced apology from these bloggers should mean very little. America has never been in total agreement about anything and never will be. To get to the greatest good we need to be aware of the ways, means and evils that provide obstacles on the path to it. For that to happen we need people to speak freely. Even if we disagree.