to the General Election is to get their facts straight before they make public statements, and that includes politicians, those calling talk shows and people writing letters to the Editors.

Let us hasten to say we are talking about facts and not opinion. People are entitled to their opinions whatever they may be but they should be careful not to mislead other people by misstating the facts. Very often, especially on talk shows but also in letters to the Editors, people get their facts wrong and those inaccuracies go by uncorrected.

The public should be making decisions and forming opinions based on facts and that can be made very difficult by a bombardment of inaccuracies or half-truths. It is especially incumbent on people in positions of power and influence to get the facts right. Of course, some people will make honest mistakes and get it wrong but as long as people are careful it will make a great difference.

We also think that people who are aware of the facts and notice mistakes have something of a duty to set them right. Otherwise it is very clear that inaccuracies stated often enough will become accepted as fact.

During an approach to a General Election the political parties all have a duty not to mislead the people but to conduct themselves according to the facts.

The use of inaccurate information can create resentment and hostility in people, especially young people. Things we learn when young remain for almost all of us the deepest truths we know in our lives. No matter how great the evidence later on, few of us are going to believe that our truths are, and always were, falsehoods.

There are people in Bermuda of all political persuasions who are intentionally something less than honest and who are happy to be loose with the truth and to bend facts to their own purposes. Some of them do not comprehend the damage they do but some continue on no matter what as long as it suits their ends and their purpose. These people are seldom interested in Bermuda or Bermudians or in the general good. They have an agenda which is to their own advantage be it self-gain or self-publicity or just plain ego.

As a people we must protect ourselves because it is the truth gives us freedom, not lies, not distorted political philosophy and certainly not falsehoods for the sake of political gain, they demean us all.