Sandy Hook & PR Firms: A Father's Letter to His Son

Note: The following is not an actual letter, but an artist's concept of a letter a father might leave to his son.
----

Dear Son,

If you are reading this, I am probably gone. Please know how much I love you, and how proud I am of the man you are becoming. I feel strongly that one day, we will meet again.

I feel and hope I have been, mostly, a good father to you. But there is one thing I have done that I could not bear to tell you in person--I could not bear the shock, and then shame, I knew I would see on your face as you looked at me.

Son, by the time you read this, it may be illegal to do so. This letter may be unlawful for you to publish, to possess, to discuss—and even to remember. But I beg you, Son, remember it, and remember me, and that with these words I have tried to make up, in some small way, for what I have done.

Son, when you were growing up, I worked for a company. This company's job was to help people who were in trouble with their community, by protecting these individuals from lawsuits, and sometimes even keeping them out of jail. Often these individuals were bad men, but most of the time, they were just good men who’d made bad decisions.

The company helped these people by hiring men like me to go wherever Americans were gathered together in discussion, and loudly speak only good things about the person who was in trouble—even if those good things were lies.

To be clear, Son, I lied for a living.

But that's not the worst of it. I didn't just say good things about bad men, I said bad things about good men. I told hateful, cruel lies about them and their families, about their religion, sex, race, color, creed, political beliefs—I said they were backward, dumb, misguided, crazy, and even dangerous. I said this all about many who were, doubtless, better men than I.

There is one lie I told, and told often, which was absolutely unforgivable. It was the Mother of all Lies. That lie was this: that free speech is dangerous. That, because free speech is dangerous, citizens who speak freely are a danger to society, and therefore, criminals.

I told that lie about American citizens who questioned President John F. Kennedy's death, who questioned Vietnam and Korea, who questioned 9/11 and the wars in Iraq. I told that lie about the citizens who questioned Sandy Hook.

That lie, repeated by me and a million company men like me, began to change America from a nation of unprecedented freedom and opportunity, to a nation more closely resembling a foreign dictatorship. At the time I am writing this, young men and women in China are jailed, daily, for speaking the truth. By the time you read this, young men and women in America may be joining them.

The greatest irony is that when I shed my blood on Iraqi soil believing that it was to protect our great nation, one of the greatest American freedoms I was protecting was freedom of speech. I bled to remove a dictator who I was told must be removed in no small part because he was telling his people the Mother of All Lies.

Son, engrave this on your soul: freedom of speech is sacred. Citizens who speak freely are not dangerous, and they are not criminals. They are Americans. For as long as America may last.

Forgive me for what I have done. If by some good fortune you have found it within yourself to not hate me, I beg you, do everything in your power to set things right. Do what you can to heal those I have harmed, and to restore our greatest American freedom. Don’t do it for me—do it for yourself, your children, and your nation.

I love you with all my heart, and pray to be reunited with you someday.

Father