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Writer appreciates a free press

EDITOR:

As an older man seeing the world for so many years, there is particularly one thing that I appreciate, and that is the free press.

I was born into the world in 1942 amidst the most cruel war that man could ever envision. The authoritarian leaders knew that they must shut down the press, allowing for a censored press that would allow only the news the leaders wanted the public to read.

The tragedy that followed was the death of 70 million people, many of them women and children.

We have minds of unlimited power and we can choose to use them or fall back to a time that muted in our own ignorance.

There are so many ways to find truth in the free world. Newspapers, books, and of course TV. Settle on one station, one writer; to search for the truth we must search.

FOX, CNN, PBS, CNBC, C-SPAN, Knoxville Sentinel, and of course the Clinton Courier.

It is ludicrous to choose one network and believe that they only can supply the truth. If that be, close down all of the news except one and then we become the authoritarian dictatorship that suppresses even the thought of another in disagreement.

There would come next the terror cells that either kill or terrorize one into submission.

Give me the free press and the right of expression and the mind that think on its own.

Dan Hicks

Norris