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Politics & Government

Howard County is Not Run by Nazis

Website crosses the line to make political point.

A great thing about living in Howard County is our proximity to two major urban centers, essentially doubling our opportunities for a wide variety of events.

Monday night, I was able to be in attendance, mouth agape, watching the Red Sox blow the final remnants of a once-impressive wild card lead. The wild quasi-playoff game featured Vlad Guerrero becoming the best-hitting Dominican-born major league baseball player of all time; an improbable inside-the-park homerun; and, my favorite of baseball miscues, a balk.

The next morning, I was in D.C. attending a forum on cyber security. One panelist, speaking about the internet and its effect on our lives, made a point that struck close to home. The web hasn’t changed anything, he said, so much as magnify everything. This is both good and bad, and the web’s magnifying effects act in inverse proportion to the size of the community targeted.

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The New York Times recently had a front-page article detailing how social networks have changed dynamics in many small towns across America for the worse. The cloak of anonymity granted to rumor mongers and snipes, coupled with instant reach into every home, has wrought deep and deleterious damage to many innocent homes.

I’ll admit, I read the article somewhat smugly. “What the heck is going on in these towns?” I thought to myself, the subtext being, of course, that we were above such things in Howard County.

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And then Gestapo Ken sprang into being.

Recently, local blog HoCo Rising alerted me to a website whose URL, and premise, is based on replacing Ken Ulman’s title of County Executive with that of the Nazi secret police. I vacillated on whether or not to link to the site—why draw more viewers to it?—but then decided that its full impact could only be assessed by every reader seeing it. Only then could you then determine if this was the type of community discourse you could be proud of.

Which, of course, I don’t think it is.

I don’t know who made the site; I don’t care. What I do know is that person, or persons, clearly has no regard for Howard County as a community of neighbors. County Executive Ken Ulman is, to some extent, my neighbor, and I wouldn’t treat any neighbor in such a derogatory fashion, no matter the substance of any political disagreement we may have.

Such expression has no sense of scale. I won’t deny that rights of eminent domain and the election of school board members are important issues; I wouldn’t be writing this column on a weekly basis if I didn’t believe that. These issues are not, however, “Gestapo style raids,” as the website claims. Gestapo style raids involve broken windows and screaming children. They involve racial subjugation and end in genocide. They involve forced medical experimentation and whole generations extinguished. They do not involve Pizza Hut and part-time political positions.

I, more than most, love a good metaphor. As frequent readers know, I’m more than happy to stretch an analogy to the breaking point. What I will not do, however, is slide just this side of slander in order to make some dubious political point. I won’t post home numbers of elected officials in some twisted attempt at a faux transparency. Issues should be addressed openly and forthrightly, substantively and rationally. Hyperbole of an egregiously imprecise nature does nothing to accomplish this.

The point will be made that the site makers have the right, under the First Amendment, to call Ken Ulman essentially whatever they want. This is indisputable. Similarly, I have the right and ability to change my name to Metta World Peace or wear a tin foil hat around town. Simply having the right and ability to do something does not make it a Good Thing, or something you Should Do, or a Sound Practice. We should cherish our free speech, not abuse it. We should use our rights to further our community, not drag it down.  

I am well aware that by focusing on the site, I am simply drawing more attention to it. However, I also believe that it is only by community-wide engagement that we can decide at what level our discourse will take place. Problems should not be hidden; open and honest (not insulting) discussion can lead to true improvement. We will always have difficulties and disagreements, solutions and counter-solutions and contention. That will never go away. How we engage those problems, though, and how we treat each other during the process is just as important as the end result.

And that treatment, that general level of respect and rapport between colleagues and neighbors, should not involve tinted pictures and mishandled quotes. It should not involve Nazi epithets.

We are, simply put, better than that. We deserve better.

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