To the editor:
I wish I could have attended Monday’s selectboard meeting. Instead I spent the entire day with an elderly parent in the emergency room, surrounded by coughing patients and an overworked staff pulling 12-hour shifts. The mere thought of the Great Barrington Declaration encouraging the spread of COVID-19 makes my blood boil.
So the selectboard quashed Leigh Davis’s “harsh” letter because they think it hurts AIER’s feelings — is that it? Who do they represent, the majority of the townspeople or the GBD (whose authors aren’t even local residents)? My neighbors and I believe in the First Amendment, but free speech cuts both ways. If someone publishes an opinion we find objectionable, we have the right to call it exactly that. And if that same opinion is actually named after us, we most certainly have the right to call it objectionable and obnoxious. Davis’ language is mild compared to the tone of our neighborhood conversations. It’s upsetting, not to mention ironic, that our electboard voted to censor her letter in the name of free speech. Would that our elected representatives had the courage not to mince words when the occasion calls for a strong response.
Let’s be honest. AIER’s declaration would be scandalous no matter what they named it. But they cynically used our town’s good name as cover for a heartless ideology. Comparing the GBD to the Paris Accord is an absurd false equivalency, as Paris has a global reputation for many positive attributes. Great Barrington’s name, from now on, will be globally synonymous with herd immunity. Our “brand” as a safe destination has been attacked, and as a result, the local economy will incur further damage. Potential visitors just have to Google “Great Barrington” and the top hit will be the GBD. Who wants to visit a town that declared advocacy for spreading disease?
Lastly, if the GBD is responsible for even one more needless death because the selectboard couldn’t muster the moral courage to denounce it, then shame on us, for we are all complicit.
Redbeard Simmons
Great Barrington
