We should not keep our mouths shut and gripe to the mirror, trees and blank walls. Our voices need to be heard so we can influence others with our constructive thoughts, modify our thinking through the contributions of others and redirect our ideas by re-evaluating what we actually believe in. When people open their mouths, others listen. When true constructive dialogue takes place, all us have the opportunity to carefully look at what we are saying and make sure the words are not simply blasts of dangerous gas.

I guess flipping through channels on the TV also has had a strong bearing on my feelings about “good” opinions and the type of debris we are seeing creep up across the cable channels. One does not have to go far to experience the rabid remarks of Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann — a pair who delight with grinning faces and demonic scowls to tear at the fabric of America. There is no granting of opinions with an option of listening to other sides.

There is no, “I’ll give my opinion” because they produce no opinions. They produce only their facts. No one else’s ideas are valid or worth anything more than a quick trip to the trash. Dialogue does not exist because these people do not listen nor discuss. They simply TELL! On the other side of the non-opinion playground are the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world — no different from the previous characters. They simply tell the viewer other things that are facts. No opinions here. “Listen to me and believe! Disagree and go to hell!”

We can turn off the talking heads and shake our heads while thanking our lucky stars there are more intelligent individuals prevailing across the nation, but there is a growing segment of these characters who have wound their performance time around what seems to be legal sainthood. Enter the Nancy Graces who express their “legal” opinions with the veracity of pit bulls and vipers. They scream and yell, hounding the victims of their assaults until, as one victim did, they commit suicide.
So what has happened to the constructive element of opinion pieces? Where have we been lead astray by the snake-oil salesmen and women who have been allowed to pronounce individuals guilty long before they have been arrested or tried for alleged crimes? Why must every national crime scene be played out over months and months of Nancy Grace’s sneering face screaming at the cameras? Opinions are spouted as facts until the facts are proved to be wrong, then a quick flip-flop to, “Well those were only my opinions!”

We need an articulate public that is willing to voice ITS opinions with firm foundations in fact. We need people who are willing to listen to the opinions of others and formulate their own beliefs with both feet rooted in intelligence and facts. “You are evil because you have a beard, a turban, a skirt, a lisp, a sexual preference I don’t like, a child, brown eyes or a bald head,” are conditions that do not merit anything more than ridicule from a nation of intelligent individuals.

It is about time we take back the streets, the night and the airwaves. We need to stop thinking there is entertainment in the Rush Limbaughs, Rachel Maddows, Nancy Graces, Laura Ingrahams, Ann Coulters and Keith Olbermanns, and they are only spouting “opinions.” They are spouting what many consider to be facts and those lies are much more dangerous than any bombing, sniper attack or plane into a skyscraper.

Craig Gunn is a State News guest columnist reach him at gunn@egr.msu.edu.