Listen and read as a skeptic

This is a drastic change in subject for my column in preparation for the upcoming election affecting the military, veterans and everyone else. An increasing number of political ads on television, radio, billboards, newspapers and emails will soon be inundating all of us.

This may come as a surprise to you, but sometimes these ads distort the truth and others may be complete lies. One suggestion to begin checking the veracity of political ads is to look at the sources of the facts in the ad, and in all probability you will find that many of these ads do not say where the information came from. Anonymous emails about politicians, policies, the military and other subjects of national importance are trash and not worthy of even reading. If you forward these garbage emails you are taking part in an effort to cultivate fear and defraud American voters. The reality is most politicians are fully capable of doing or stating things that cast them in a bad light without needing to spread lies about them.

These political lies usually play on readers' fears and ignorance. One recent example has been warnings about ISIS, al-Qaida, or some other Muslim group taking over the United States and implementing Sharia law. If this has raised your own fears, I suggest reading the Bill of Rights and finding the part that allows anyone to force religious beliefs into U.S. laws.

If you want an example of how effective fear mongering can be, think back 16 years ago to the year 1999. Remember the emails warning of the year-end complete economic collapse when computers could not adjust to the year 2000, News articles and talking heads on television and radio picked up the message, spreading fear of how all computers would fail. No one would be able to escape the devastation caused by the Y2K computer crash. None of this was true.

Oh, and, by the way, under the Affordable Care Act, there are no death panels and never were going to be.

Don't take the bait.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.