Are people on one side of an issue attempting to discredit people on the other side by using unfair tactics that impugn the latter's...

There are several kinds of witch hunts going on in today's
society.

The public sees this with every
election.

Stories come out about one candidate and the
terrible things he has done; and the other "side" returns the favor. Propaganda controls
the public view, and what better way than to find and sling "mud" around to prove a
candidate is not perfect, rather than to identify the issues and discuss
them.

Some will point a finger at President Obama for wrong
doings. However, others point fingers at Sarah Palin. If it's not an individual in front
of the "firing squad," it is an entire political party.

The
recent election in November of this year is considered one of the ugliest ever. The
polarization of the two parties has caused contingents on both sides to dig for "dirt"
and do their best to discredit the other side. Half-truths and innuendo have become far
more prevalent than debates.

The same happens with
controversial issues such as abortion and stem cell research. It is hard sometimes to
separate the facts from the extremely creative fiction that moves around; these tactic
do little to enlighten the public, but do much more to frighten and/or confuse voters,
for much of what is sanctioned in the scientific and moral communities is controlled
through politics.

Martha Stewart's conviction of insider
trading was a witch hunt. If she was involved in such activities, she was certainly the
scapegoat that took the fall even while high-level executives in major corporations were
not being charged for doing the same thing. Rather than seeming like a criminal who got
caught, it seemed as if the entire thing was a joke, and it would seem, Martha is more
popular now than ever before.

Witch hunts exist wherever
people disagree, and someone needs to take the blame. The best way to avoid being sucked
in is to be as educated as possible in order to avoid the drama; stick to the
issues.

The "experts" don't see anything here that is hard
to understand. Though it may seem more closely associated with politics, it is
applicable on a much wider scale. According to Jordan Guinn Lodi's article
(News-Sentinel, California) entitled, "Campaign ads can get downright ugly. Why do
candidates embrace mud-slingling so easily?"...

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...there is a reason negative political
campaigns have been a part of the American political arena for more than 150 years: They
work.

People seem to enjoy
them

"It responds to our basic human nature," said David
Johnson, CEO of Georgia-based Strategic Vision, LLC. and a senior Republican strategist
who worked on Bob Dole's 1988 presidential campaign. "People respond to a negative
story, no matter if it is political, financial or even
sports."

With this in mind,
the witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts, don't seem so far fetched. In this age of
technology and the access to information on the Internet, people are looking to expose
and/or blame others all the time. There is always another "witch hunt" just around the
corner.