Author: Aldon Hynes

The United States has a sad history of bombings, lynchings, and death threats to people who are different from us either in looks or opinion. Some had hoped that as people learned to express themselves online, we would learn how to use our words for good instead of as part of threats. Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened, and online threats are a growing problem.

Early in 2007, the Edwards for President campaign hired two bloggers, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan. In their blogging, they had expressed views online that were markedly different from those of some conservatives. As a result, conservative pundits demanded that Sen. Edwards fire them. It is one thing to vigorously disagree with another person’s opinion. It is another thing to try and get them fired. Yet it crosses a dangerous line when death threats are issued. Sen. Edwards assured everyone that their jobs were secure, but when Ms. Marcotte and Ms. McEwan started receiving death threats, they decided not to take the jobs after all.

Yet in the tradition of the King of Denmark wearing a Star of David during the Nazi occupation and proclaiming that we are all Jews, I set up a Facebook Group for all of us that would proclaim I am Amanda Marcotte.

A few months later, Kathy Sierra, started receiving death threats and as a result cancelled her speaking engagement at the O’Reilly Etech Conference and suspended her blog. Other bloggers temporarily suspended their blogs in solidarity, and Ms. Sierra wrote, “If you want to do something about it, do not tolerate the kind of abuse that includes threats or even suggestions of violence”

Now, the bullies that resort to physical threats have a new target. It is the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Two ACORN offices have been broken into and vandalized. They have received threatening phone calls and emails, including one that wrote that a female organizer “is going to have her life ended”. The phone calls have included some of the worst racial epitaphs and talked about Sen. Obama being lynched. All of this has been turned over to the appropriate authorities.

Some of the phone calls have attacked ACORN for destroying one of our most cherished basic rights, the right to vote. Yet those same people have been destroying another of our most cherished rights, the right to due process and the assumption of being innocent until proven guilty. There have been many allegations against ACORN, both presently and in the past. Those that have been made in the past have been found to be without merit, and I expect there will be similar findings this time around. Whatever the findings, it is inappropriate for people to take matters into their own hands, threaten violence, destroy property, and with it destroy due process, part of what makes America strong.

So, if you believe in the things that make our country great, like democracy and due process, stand up against the threats and violence. Proclaim that you too, are an ACORN organizer. As Ms. Sierra said, ““If you want to do something about it, do not tolerate the kind of abuse that includes threats or even suggestions of violence”

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