A radio broadcast, nationally syndicated during the late 1980s, spawned legions of followers who became known to agree with everything that was postulated about socio-political issues. As the story goes, during the early days a caller into the show, and there were many of them, responded to the hosts comments by simply saying “ditto”. What followed soon after was the cultural creation known as, Ditto Heads. A moniker rabidly mocked by the social and political left as a symbol of mindless conservative minions. And yet today, we clearly see a new form of blind allegiance as so many are now spending most of their time on social media simply retweeting the views of those they idolize.  I have no doubt this phenomenon comprises the majority of all postings. Which leads to another question. Why is it that a blessing, and broadcast media is certainly one of them, always walks hand in hand with a curse?

Consider this; our greatest blessing as Americans, personal freedom, was exactly the weapon used by nineteen foreign terrorists, who quietly and freely boarded airliners on 9/11 and then proceeded to kill nearly three thousand people without firing a single shot. So then how do we eliminate the curse? In the case of that fateful day more than twenty years ago, we have unrelentingly built a society of electronic surveillance that today monitors virtually every aspect of our personal behavior, and now, even our beliefs and opinions. Effective? Sure. Slowly eroding, if not eliminating the blessing of personal freedom as well as free speech? Absolutely. All the while creating a perfect haven for faceless hate driven rhetoric cloaked as enlightened views.