A free press is anathema to a despot, but essential to a democracy. People cannot act together to govern themselves while isolated by ignorance. A free press creates a collective understanding of how we determine truth (or at least how we do not determine it), a common goal of doing so, and the means to accomplish it. Those are indispensable to democracy. If we have them, then we have the tools necessary to build essential institutions and processes, however we might design them. If we do not, then we struggle in vain.

Each time a newspaper dies it takes with it a stream of truth. If tyranny or chaos is to prevail, it first must destroy the free press. If there are those who would enslave the people, then they must stem the tiny rivulets of truth and revelation that wend their way across the printed page. Otherwise, those trickles merge into a flood of resistance.

Before we wrote one jot or tittle of law, before we created one institution, and before we elected one official, a free, vibrant, aggressive and persistent press planted the seeds of democracy. We need a free press now to keep our democracy growing. In case you do not recognize it, our press, the free press where we live, work and raise our families,is the Athens News Courier. Support it. Give it the resources it needs to do its job. Subscribe to it, read it, contribute to it and push it to be current and relevant.

Limestone County is growing rapidly, and the need to understand the complexities of its government, economy, and communities is growing with it. “Read all about it,” the news boys and girls used to yell when new editions of newspapers arrived. That still is good advice.

Kenneth Hines

Athens