By The Signal Editorial Board
One of the greatest things about our nation is the freedom of speech we all enjoy, as established in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
It’s also one of the most dangerous.
The tensions stoked by the political rhetoric of our time came to a violent head on Saturday, as a would-be assassin’s bullet narrowly missed taking the life of former President Donald Trump.
A 50-year-old former fire chief died while trying to shield his family from the gunfire, and two others attending Trump’s Pennsylvania rally were seriously wounded. The 20-year-old shooter was killed by one of the snipers who were there to protect the former president.
The condemnation of the attempted assassination was near universal, save for the internet crackpots who found humor in it, or worse, lamented that the sniper missed.
Such has become the level of political hatred in our country. When his foes label him as “the next Hitler” and a “threat to democracy,” their hyperbole paints a target on his back.
Both the left and the right have been guilty of such overheated rhetoric in recent years, making this latest round of American political violence almost inevitable.
And to their credit, leaders from both major political parties, from President Joe Biden to House Speaker Mike Johnson and others, have seen this as a wake-up call of sorts, and stated, correctly, that it’s time to dial down the temperature on the way we talk about each other when we disagree.
We couldn’t agree more.
And for our part, we will continue our standing policy against publishing name-calling, false claims and attacks that are purely personal rather than focusing on the issues at hand. In fact, we are renewing our efforts to be more vigilant about such things.
You will find no more of a staunch defender of Americans’ First Amendment freedoms than this newspaper. We’ve long held that those five rights are crucial foundational freedoms that make the U.S. unique and special:
Freedom of the press.
Freedom of speech.
Freedom to practice the religion of your choosing, along with the absence of an “official” religion sanctioned by the government.
Freedom to assemble – peacefully.
And, the freedom to petition your government and ask for change.
But, with these freedoms also come the moral obligations to handle them responsibly.
Do we favor robust debate? Absolutely.
Will we publish viewpoints that are different from our own? One hundred percent yes.
But we also recognize our role in promoting discourse that, while vigorous, remains civil. With that in mind, we choose to exercise our own First Amendment right to exercise discretion about what we choose to publish, and what we choose not to.
While we operate our opinion pages in the spirit of the First Amendment and the free exchange of ideas, we also exercise our own right to moderate that exchange. We will not publish material advocating political violence, and we will edit submissions to remove anything objectionable, from the vicious to the profane.
You may not always agree with our editing decisions. Admittedly, some of these calls are subjective, balls-and-strikes decisions.
We’ll admit to being human up front, too — sometimes we’ll make a mistake. But we pledge to strive for decency and fairness, always.
America got a wake-up call this past weekend. We hope the ensuing calls for “turning the temperature down” result in a lasting change.
That, admittedly, is a tall order in a society where so many millions of keyboard warriors — of various political stripes — feel free to spew venom with impunity and anonymity.
We remain, however, committed to do our part — and strive to live up to that banner clutched in the talons of the bald eagle on our front-page masthead that says, “Vigilance Forever.”
