Editorial-Opinion March 2017

Happy birthday to GON.

Before I get into what I want to say this month, I wanted to let you know that with this issue, GON turns 30 years old. The first issue we ever published was in the middle of March, 1987. The cover story was about a large crappie tournament that was held at West Point Lake out of Highland Marina on Saturday, March 15, 1987.

Coincidentally, we sold our first subscription that afternoon. After the weigh-in, my wife and I stopped by a place to eat in LaGrange, and, as it happened, joined a table of fishermen doing the same thing. One of the fisherman at that table purchased the first subscription to GON. His name is James Jordan, and James still guides on West Point. He started us off right.

The past 30 years have seen thousands of you follow in James’ footsteps and support our team here at GON. It has been a remarkable run, and so much fun that we look forward to bringing you the next 30 years. The folks here, often after input from y’all, continue to work hard at making each issue of GON unique and special. We truly appreciate your support.

Now I want to tell you a personal story. I forget exactly what I was doing on Feb. 16, but I was running a bit late for lunch. I hopped in my Chevy 2500 Silverado bought from John Megel, and the radio station I was tuned to was carrying the Trump press conference. I was listening to it live.

It was mesmerizing.

Later that evening, I was alone, eating a late dinner at a small restaurant. The TV was on CNN, with the sound down. However, it was showing those banner headlines at the bottom, and I could follow along with their coverage of the President and the press conference.

It was confusing—like they weren’t reporting on the same conference I heard. But they were.

After 30 years of being in “the media,” it is clear to me that what I was watching was not news coverage. Rather it was a shading of facts and a skewed speculation of the President’s motivation. I only knew what the President said, and what he meant, because I heard him say it firsthand.

I know some of you are not surprised with such a report about CNN, but that is just one example of a very wide-ranging pattern of false information about what is happening to us and to our country.

I have noticed all the protests going on everywhere—protestors whose goal is to make a false argument, and turn that falsehood into an acceptable argument. It is a repeat of the, “Hands up, don’t shoot” experience where that slogan was proven to be a lie, but a portion of the public ignored the facts and insisted that the lie was true.

What to do?

There is a famous quote that reads… “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

There is another quote, more recent, that said, “Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.”

I mention these quotes because it seems to me that, on one hand, today’s  protesting groups will not defend my right or your right to say anything other than to agree with what they say.

And on the other hand, these aren’t the only people showing up. If you look a bit deeper, you find that other people are showing up, but they are being shouted down, intimidated and even assaulted.

Now a lesson from nature.

Lake Chatuge on the Georgia/North Carolina border once held a very respectable population of smallmouth bass. Then someone introduced spotted bass to the lake. Spots are more aggressive than smallmouth, and the spots have largely replaced smallmouth in that lake.

I believe there are similarities between this fish biology and today’s politics.

I am not exactly sure what I am going to do about these protests, but I am sure we need to start showing up. History has shown us that the silent majority is fairly easily pushed around by the loud minority. It’s time the quiet, respectful, peaceful, law-abiding side begins to discuss our options.

I think there are a significant number of you who agree with my experience and my conclusions. I also think there are enough of you with a schedule flexible enough to be able to travel and stand up for your beliefs in a public forum.

Can you say “Road Trip?”

And again, thank you all for a really great 30 years of GON.