Speak Up!

I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it! -Voltaire
(Okay maybe he didn't say that exactly but he did say somethin' sorta kinda like it- and I will defend to the death...)
Full disclosure time: Communication plays a big part in what I do. As a therapist, I help people find their own voices so they can say to others, to themselves, what they've always needed to say. As a pastor, I deal with the Word of God. And as a college professor, I teach young people how to communicate with the world around them. (As a actor manque I am learning how to interact with the words of the playwright and the actions of the others on stage.)
But sometimes we seem to be willing to let anyone say anything, and to take each just seriously as any other. I realize how hypocritical it seems for a blogger like me to look down upon others, and also to ignore the possibility that what is drivel to one person (me, for instance) might seem words of wisdom to someone else (uh, you, maybe?) (After all, somebody is watching Fox News.)
The issue, however, is that we seem willing to give airtime and attention to anyone saying whatever. That First Amendment aficionado in me would be willing to let anyone who wants to get up, as they do on Hyde Park Corner in London, and proclaim whatever they wish to whoever might listen (or no one, as the case sometimes is) But there is another part of me that rues the fact that we are confusing communication with vocalization.
Part of the problem lies, frankly, in the vast amount of mass media we have today. Tweets, blogs, Facebook, all are insatiable monsters calling for more and more input, however trivial or ephemeral. We do not censor ourselves; some things in our lives do not need to be shared with the universe, or, if at all, with only our closest and most trustworthy.
One of my favorite radio personalities, Colin McEnroe, recently had a show where he gave up the entire hour to a small group promoting a paranoid conspiracy theory about what really happened to the Twin Towers on 9/11. When I sent him an e-mail expressing my dismay that he had wasted airtime (and his own credibility) on such a topic, he responded very defensively and even became hostile toward me personally when I tried to suggest that he had fallen prey to the tabloidization of our society.
If someone chooses to proclaim gibberish, no matter how well-stated or glossily presented, they are not only welcome to do so, they are entitled to do so. But I not only have no need to listen, I also have to point out to others that what they are enrapt with is really well-stated and glossily presented nonsense.