Get your information from lots of sources

To The Editor: I arrived in Germany as a soldier in February 1946, when the wounds of World War II were still fresh. In retrospect, it was good fortune that my assignment brought me into contact with a broad range of German people.

To my surprise, considering what I’d been taught, the vast majority were fine, wonderful people. I was curious to learn how such good people fell under the control of a vicious totalitarianism.

I acquired life-lessons of enduring value. One is; it’s easier to lose liberty than you can imagine, and virtually impossible to regain.

Control of information, alone, can lead people around by the nose. The Germans knew they weren’t being told the truth but had no means to discover the truth. (Also, inquisitiveness was dangerous.)

We tend to believe that we get the truth, plain and simple, from our media. Not so. We are at the mercy of people who select, truncate, abridge, interpret, edit, “contextualize” and “explain” the news.

If we restrict ourselves to the mainstream media, or only those we already agree with, we have no idea what’s actually happening in the world, and put our liberty at risk.

Watchword: A half-truth is a whole lie.

Boyd Peyton

Hendersonville