I’m a full believer in a the first amendment right to freedom of speech.

One of the greatest things about our country is the right to express your opinions, no matter how insightful or idiotic they may be.

I may have come across a couple of individuals who fall into that later category, however, I would not specifically say they’re idiots. An idiot is defined by Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary as 1) a person affected with extreme mental retardation or 2) a foolish or stupid person.

Well as a trained and licensed special education teacher I can testify from their writing samples that they are without a doubt not mentally retarded. And while I think their ideas are stupid, I’d say the easiest way to classify their opinions on Duke University, its basketball team and coach are more or less foolish.

I’m not mad that they said negative things about Duke, or Mike Krzyzewski. I’m a fan, I get it. You don’t like Duke or Krzyzewski because one or more of his 903 wins came against your team so you spew forth your hatred in derogatory and demeaning ways. Fine you are well within your right to do so.

My criticisms actually has very little to do with my love of Duke, but rather the approach with which they took in expressing their not-so original opinions on the subject. 

They pulled up old, tired, and worn arguments to prove their points. They are bloggers, I am a blogger. They write their opinions and I write my own. I don’t expect all opinions to always live harmoniously.

But I can only speak for myself, who has been a journalist and written for newspapers, that how they went about writing their respective pieces was nothing other than an extremist form of editoralizing to get readership.

These two “writers” likely won’t read this, I don’t care if they do. They are entitled to their opinion on Duke and, well, I’m entitled to my opinion on their opinion. Ain’t  freedom grand?

I judge them not as people, I won’t call them names, I won’t accuse them of things I have absolutely not proof of and I won’t stoop to the level of manufacturing things about them to prove a point.

I won’t ask or dig up an article where someone that is known to have a grudge against them says something tantalizing or inflammatory,  just so I can say I have included a tantalizing quote from a source that otherwise wouldn’t be given the time of day.

I won’t dig up any information about long since dismissed legal cases that didn’t affect you per se but affected something that your are affiliated with just so that I can say “see look what this unaffiliated item means about you.”

I won’t include biases that are greatly influenced by my emotional attachment to  sports and sports teams that I like.

I won’t criticize you for your attempts to make decisions or express your opinions on decisions made by people important to you who, are otherwise, making decisions you don’t agree with.

I won’t make blatant and narrow-minded generalizations about you without knowing who you are, meeting you, and actually talking to you to get to know you better.

I certainly won’t compare you to someone else not associated with you but who you are compared to and who just so happens to be facing serious questions about their morality and ethical behavior.

I won’t allow my dislike of something you like or represent to boil into hatred which I will then turn into malicious, inaccurate and glamorized sewage just for the sake of getting a few extra readers to my site. 

No, I won’t do these things or many of the other things that these two “writers” chose to do because that isn’t how I live my life and that isn’t how I write this blog.

Again this has nothing to do with my love of Duke and everything to do with being critical of how they handled their hatred of Duke.

I’m not going to try and change their opinions, that isn’t going to happen. But while I am typically tolerant of most points of view I can not support or condone theirs.

But that is just me. What do you say?
 
Read these two bloggers and see for yourself, because unlike them I have no problem showing both side of the argument, even if I think the other side is obtuse and short sighted and maybe just a little idiotic.

Andrew Sharp

Dubsism