Free speech trumps misinformation

An example of "Did you hear about..." appeared in last Sunday's Forum in "A familiar way of doing business" by syndicated columnist Cynthia Tucker.

After providing cover for uncountable Clinton scandals and rationalizing Obama's questionable associations, Tucker would now have us believe she's a paragon of virtue, and a passionate exposer of political chicanery.

It's amazing that Tucker would actually write that Palin used "private e-mail accounts to shield her official communications from public records." I thought Tucker was against illegal wiretapping? I guess it's OK to wiretap a political opponent's private email, but unconstitutional to eavesdrop on terrorist plots.

Regardless of all the misinformation, distortion and half-truths to smear political opponents, I believe wholeheartedly in the First Amendment and the right to write or say anything you want about politics. The vast majority of Americans can easily sift the true wheat from the false chaff so blast away and hooray for free speech.

-- Ray Unger, Madison

Books still the preferred choice

It is as Aristotle wrote: "We think our powers correspond to our time of life and that a particular age brings with it intuitive reason and judgment."

However, if asked whether I use the Internet to learn about democracy, wisdom and judgment, the answer is no.

My perspective comes from a tradition over 2,000 years old called reading a book.

I am blessed to live in a college town where the graduates, dropouts and estates of dead professors surrender their books to stores with cheap resale prices.

-- Patrik Vander Velden, Monona

Go straight to source when mulling choices

The digital culture can be very helpful if used in the right way.

What tears it down is the "smut" that is sent out as e-mails and such that doesn't provide accurate answers or information. This can be misleading. If Americans choose this form of information to make decisions, no wonder we are where we are.

I'm proud to be American, and this year our country needs us more than at any other time since I have been able to vote. We must come together to unite America and work at a plan to secure her future for all of us.

Americans need to get the real facts on the "smut" they are reading in their e-mails and other places.

All Americans should go to our candidates' Web sites and view for themselves their views and what they plan to do.

We can all visit the sites www.BarackObama.com and www.JohnMcCain.com to learn for ourselves what they have to offer.

-- Diane Baty, Stoughton

Media should do more fact checking

I don't know who to trust anymore. I don't know who is telling the truth, and who is trying to push their own agenda. The ads are full of lies, and there seems to be no fact checking done by the majority of the media, at least when it comes to certain candidates.

It would be nice if major news sources would actually do their jobs and report the news, the facts, in an unbiased manner instead of apparently relying on what is stated in the blogs of unqualified people.

It really doesn't help that things get spread around so quickly either. Since there's no delay in the transfer of information, the lies get completely blown out of proportion before anyone is even able to think about extinguishing the flames.

-- Audrey Peters, Stoughton

Skepticism, wisdom will grow in time

The digital culture, in the short run, results in less wisdom, judgment and perspective. Why? Because the digital culture dominates among the younger people in our population.

While the youth -- their energy, curiosity and stamina -- are our future, their wisdom, judgment and perspective -- even before the digital culture arrived -- ripens only slowly. And many young people underestimate the value of experience.

The addition of distractive stimuli and the multi-tasking generated by the digital culture slows the ripening of wisdom, judgment and perspective.

As time passes and maturity grows, the human mind adapts to the growing stimuli inherent in digital culture and learns to sort, challenge and pursue clarification of the onslaught of incoming messages. With experience, some messages become more obvious as lies.

The digital culture probably initially hurts the development of wisdom, but with growing experience and screening, wisdom could be furthered in the long run.

The risk is that one's coping mechanism causes one to drift toward fewer, narrower and philosophically more dogmatic sources of information, a cause in the underdevelopment, if not the demise, of wisdom.

-- Brad Taylor, Madison