Taken from Boston Globe's Boston.com

It seems that this blog has taken on my challenge of being more respectful in the interest of understanding what we can learn from one another. Thank you. All too often on blogs I see attitudes flare and exchanges reduced to the level of road rage shouting out of the window. It limits intelligent debate and quite frankly we all need to call an end to it if we are to respect ourselves as mature and educated adults.

There is so much to talk about here, and I find the original question that started the thread a bit limiting, so if no one minds I would prefer to speak freely on related matters. First I would like to thank Tom8675309 for bringing to this discussion some of the videos I referred to. These are real news documentaries that are hard to refute and give anyone interested in understanding the truth behind the Ben LaGuer case some facts to think about. I personally agree with greenbrier that all too often people hear a sound bite or only part of a story and base their opinion on half truths rather than bother to look into things more fully. This man has no other criminal record and served his country faithfully as an honorably discharged soldier in the Army. I think the fact that we have FBI agents like Richard Slowe and great minds like John Silber stating very matter of factly that this case was not properly investigated that there is reasonable doubt enough to re-open the case and verify we have the right man. Ben LaGuer would not be the first person behind bars for decades, yet innocent, if it is true. The fact that he has been in jail for twenty years should not weigh in as a measure of his guilt.

The rabble over Healey's ad campaign is worth addressing. I disapprove of any smear tactics, and if it were left to my decision I would limit the candidates to speaking about what they have accomplished and what they intend on contributing if we put them in office. Candidates should win office based on their merits achieved and the quality of their platform, not because they scared you more than the other candidate did. Healey's ads don't just hurt Deval Patrick, they could be harming an innocent man's chances of having a twenty year wrong against him corrected, and to me that is unconscionable. If Ben LaGuer turns out to be innocent Healey's political career is over, and if I were her advisors I would have picked a better case than this because of that fact.

Does everybody remember how the cities and towns got into the fiscal crisis they are now in? It was the current administration that started to cut state aid to local government that forced local taxes to go up in the first place. The funding for what we want has to come from somewhere and anyone that tells you that they can offer the same services without collecting the money for it is playing a "shell game" with you. Instead of telling us that she is going to cut taxes I would have rather heard Healey tell us about how she is going to invest in our state in order to keep our money well spent instead of wasted. Christy Mihos made a great point in the last debate when he said that there are certain businesses that will never leave our state, and we should invest in them heavily. The fiscal responsibility of Healey is suspect to me because she and Romney have had four years to iron out the Big Dig, yet I have seen no real accountability for all the misappropriated and misdirected funds even though Romney was supposed to be able to come in and solve our financial woes with his genius. Like many other republicans in leadership I think he helped his friends in high places when he could, turned a blind eye to their wrongs when he could get away with it, and I see Kerry Healey sitting quietly in the background while all this takes places.

Kerry Healey wanted to be in this office so badly she put aside her own principles in order to run with a governor that is pro-life. The fact that we are the only state to support full marriage equality is something I am very proud of, and the fact that she is the only candidate that does not support equality is another contention I have against her. When she was asked at the last debate if she would address with governor Romney the fact that he has been bad mouthing our state while away and ask him to stop, she avoided answering the question, twice. From the boos in the audience I feel I am not alone in thinking that her answer was a politician's "no" and that sits poorly with me that someone who wants to sit in our most powerful office is not able to stand up for us. This is a valid reason not to vote for someone, as it shows neither leadership nor loyalty to the people. I don’t believe she is running to better our state, and I don’t believe in her ability to create positive change or to lead. She has had fours years to do so, I see very little accomplished by her that she alone can lay claim to. I put my money where my mouth is am in the spirit of this great commonwealth I fight fiercely for what I believe in. I do not see this same spirit in her, and I don’t trust she will do what is best for the common man, but rather I believe she will make decisions that are in her best interest and in the interest of her friends.

That being said, I would love to hear an intelligent rebuttal as the only thing I am sure of in life is how little I really know.