By Bob Gaydos

 A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to indulge a bit of fatherly pride. (There will be some personal bragging here, but I do have a more universal point if you bear with me.) My oldest son, Max, was among 52 students at Pine Bush High School who participated in a Literacy and Education Academy for four weeks this summer. The focus of the course was diversity. That is, how to teach diversity. The students were taught and, in turn, taught other students the value of tolerance and the benefits of living in a diverse society. This is not your usual high school curriculum.

 I report proudly that Max and the others took to it with enthusiasm and culminated their lesson with a diversity fair which they planned, organized and presented on their own. A true growth experience for all concerned, capped by a ceremony at SUNY New Paltz, which co-sponsored the class and awarded three general education credits for graduates.

 Which brings me to my point. The two teachers assigned to the academy are among the best at Pine Bush and the kind to which most students can relate. They enjoy their work and it shows. I like and respect them both. But at New Paltz, in summing up the class, one of them noted that, in response to a local newspaper story on the diversity fair, a few negative comments had been posted on the online version. Basically, three people too gutless to include their real names on their comments trashed it as a waste of money and an effort to promote homosexuality. The teacher admonished the students not to let these remarks spoil their experience and offered that everyone is entitled to an opinion. And she said, “There is no such thing as a stupid opinion.”

 Sorry, but that is pure nonsense. If 40-plus years in journalism taught me anything, it is that our world is awash in stupid opinions. Today, they are more evident than ever. You can read them anytime on the Internet. And you can hear them daily on talk radio and television. On and on, mindless jabbering about important issues by people with no regard for the facts or, worse, willful disregard for them. And stupid opinions can lead to stupid behavior.

 As Exhibit A, I offer Sarah I-will-exploit-any-member-of- my-family-at-any-time-for-my-personal-gain-and-will-say-anything-I-think-will-make-like-minded-people-too-lazy-to-check-the-facts-agree-with-me-but-I-really-can’t-take-another-year-and-a-half-as-governor-of-Alaska-so-I’m-quitting-the-job-to-which-I-was-elected-so-I-can-make-more-money-offering-my-opinions-on-a-heckuva-lot-of-stuff-I-know-nothing-about Palin.

 You want a stupid opinion? Palin’s allegation that President Obama wants to include a government-run “death panel” as part of the reform of health care not only ignores the facts of the proposed benefit – which said merely that people should have the option to confer with a doctor to make sound end-of-life decisions and that the consultation would be covered by insurance – but conveniently ignores the fact that Palin herself made such a recommendation herself a couple of years ago. And, it goes against everything she has known to be true about her country, of which she is so proud.

 Does she really believe that any American president would ever propose creating something as heinous as “death panels” to decide who lives and dies? Would she ever have the guts to accuse Obama to his face of such a plan? Not likely. Easier to lob Facebook bombs from Alaska.

 This suggests that Palin’s opinion may not have been so much stupid as evil. To make such a charge when you know it not be true is beyond cynical politics. But the people who heard it and repeated it without checking the facts on it were, in fact, spreading a stupid opinion, just like those people who parrot anything Rush Limbaugh says or the folks commenting on the diversity training. The common denominator, obviously, is fear, which is the basis of most stupid opinion. It is easier to believe an outrageous lie sometimes than to struggle to get all the information and resolve an honest difference of opinion. Then, of course, there’s the politics of attacking someone because you don’t like him. Because, maybe, he’s different from you and somehow threatens you, but you just don’t know how.

 The point is that opinions that sound outrageous on their face are probably outrageous beneath their outer shell of anger and bias. Yes, everyone has an opinion. But, while all men and women may be considered to have been created equal, not all opinions are equal. Opinions can be rooted in rumor, fear, twisted facts and, yes, hidden agendas. The “death panel” reports were created by Obama foes who oppose any health care reform, oppose abortion and describe him as an advocate of euthanasia. The New York Times recently identified some of those: The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper which has compared Obama to the Nazis, the conservative American Spectator magazine and former New York lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey, whom I think I am safe in calling a wack job. The Internet bloggers and anonymous e-mailers picked up the undoucmente4d charges charge and ran with them, egged on by insurance companies (who actually do make life-and-death decisions) who stand to see their profits reduced by health care reform.

 These opinions are not equal to those formed after research and thoughtful discussion on the topic. When there is no evidence, no basis in reality, they are downright stupid and ought to be ignored to death, not given equal footing.

 I went looking for some support for my opinion here (even though I felt I was on solid ground) and came across Elsa Scheider’s web site: Elsa’s word story image idea music emporium. In the idea portion of the emporium, the former teacher writes at length about the notion that all ideas are equal (there’s no such thing as a stupid opinion). She says this is absurd. As proof, she writes that she asked a class of students who believed the all-ideas-are-equal argument if they would accept her opinion that all ideas were not equal.

 Conundrum.

 If they said yes, she asked how could they believe any of their opinions are right or wrong if opposite opinions are equally right or wrong?

 More to the point, she noted that “if all opinions are equal, it follows that the opinion that all opinions are not equal is just as good as the opinion that all opinions are equal. Yes equals no.”

 Most students refused to accept her opinion, instantly making their opinion
irrelevant. And stupid.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

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