Ridgewood NJ, Mayor Vagianos Constantly Speaks about Civility and Proclaims that in his Meetings there is no Bullying Allowed, We cry BS. At the February 10 meeting, when apparently someone in the audience said they could not hear what was being discussed, Mr. Vagianos chastised the individual for speaking out. In fact, the mayor seemed very annoyed and was speaking as if to a petulant child. Seems that all the person was asking for was the right to hear whatever was being said by our elected officials. No need to be rude, Mr. Mayor. No need to be a BULLY.
Ridgewood NJ, Tim Wu, the former Biden White House “antitrust expert” known for coining the term “net neutrality,” has sparked a heated debate with his recent op-ed in the New York Times. The piece, headlined in a way that underscores the apprehensions of the progressive left, addresses what Wu sees as the judiciary’s mismanagement of the First Amendment.
Ridgewood NJ, “Please pay attention to what is happening at Village Hall right now as it could affect us all. Here is the latest:
As set forth in the posted upcoming meeting agenda, the Village Council is re-introducing wording from their code which allows the Mayor to kick out of Village Hall anyone he interprets as deserving of it:
Ridgewood NJ, Board of Education candidate Dan Creed claims someone using “fake Facebook profiles ” has been attacking him and Board candidate Muhammad Mahmoud . Creed immediately called for you guessed it, “civility” .
Aronohn was there for eight years and left a mess. knudsen had me at 3066 repealed and we should never forget the garagezilla, huge multifamily apartments, 94’high Valley expansion, the clear cutting of public lands, healthvarn giveaway, the uncivil aronsohn puccciareli hauck sonenfeld bunch.
Some mess to clean up and good job .
Beware anyone who PREACHES civility. If Jan Philips is any indication, those who PREACH it do not practice it. And Jumpin Jeff Voigt, oh my gosh, he is busy trying to be kind and soft-spoken but we have seen his dark side, his outbursts, his evil doings, nope, not buying it. And they are both in the school of Aronsohn, not a school from which anyone wants to earn a degree.
Ridgewood NJ, according to the Cato 2017 Free Speech and Tolerance Survey, a new national poll of 2,300 U.S. adults, finds that 71% Americans believe that political correctness has silenced important discussions our society needs to have. The consequences are personal—58% of Americans believe the political climate prevents them from sharing their own political beliefs.
We have gotten to the point that 65% of Americans (and 54% of college and graduate students) say college students should discuss which halloween costumes might be seen as offensive without the involvement of college administrators.
Democrats are unique, however, in that a slim majority (53%) do not feel the need to self-censor. Conversely, strong majorities of Republicans (73%) and independents (58%) say they keep some political beliefs to themselves
Ridgewood NJ, In the paper , “The Rise of Victimhood Culture.” by Conor Friedersdorf , Friedersdorf explains, Americans previously settled conflicts within the frameworks of the “honor” and “dignity” cultures:
“In honor cultures like the Old West or the street gangs of West Side Story, they might engage in a duel or physical fight. In dignity cultures, like the ones that prevailed in Western countries during the 19th and 20th Centuries, ‘insults might provoke offense, but they no longer have the same importance as a way of establishing or destroying a reputation for bravery,’ they write. ‘When intolerable conflicts do arise, dignity cultures prescribe direct but non-violent actions.’”
But now, we have the victimhood culture. Quoting Campbell and Manning, Friedersdorf explains this as
“characterized by concern with status and sensitivity to slight combined with a heavy reliance on third parties. People are intolerant of insults, even if unintentional, and react by bringing them to the attention of authorities or to the public at large. Domination is the main form of deviance, and victimization a way of attracting sympathy, so rather than emphasize either their strength or inner worth, the aggrieved emphasize their oppression and social marginalization.
Victimhood cultures emerge in settings, like today’s college campuses, “that increasingly lack the intimacy and cultural homogeneity that once characterized towns and suburbs, but in which organized authority and public opinion remain as powerful sanctions,” they argue. “Under such conditions complaint to third parties has supplanted both toleration and negotiation. People increasingly demand help from others, and advertise their oppression as evidence that they deserve respect and assistance. Thus we might call this moral culture a culture of victimhood … the moral status of the victim, at its nadir in honor cultures, has risen to new heights.”
According to the paper, the following social conditions allow the victimhood culture to get a foothold:
Self-help in the form of dueling or fighting is not an option.
“The availability of social superiors—especially hierarchical superiors such as legal or private administrators—is conducive to reliance on third parties.”
Campaigns aimed at winning over the support of third parties are likeliest to occur in atomized environments, like college campuses, where one cannot rely on members of a family, tribe or clan to automatically take one’s side in a dispute.
Since third-parties are likeliest to intervene in disputes that they regard as relatively serious, and disputes where one group is perceived as dominating another are considered serious by virtue of their aggregate relevance to millions of people, victimhood culture is likeliest to arise in settings where there is some diversity and inequality, but whose members are almost equal, since “a morality that privileges equality and condemns oppression is most likely to arise precisely in settings that already have relatively high degrees of equality.”
In simple terms the members of the victimhood culture operate within a relatively privileged and sheltered environment and try to solve conflicts in a childish fashion by tattling to authority figures so that they may gloat over their perceived aggressors.
Ridgewood NJ, at Wednesday nights council meet ,Jan Phillips once again attempted to strong arm the council in the name of civility by pushing them to hang a Gay Pride flag over Village Hall. Many will remember her as the one who called everyone “GRANDSTANDERS” who objected to Aronsohn’s giant garage fiasco.
If Susan and company do not put the flag up, Jan will make it her mission to brand all of them as anti-gay which is completely untrue.
A reader wrote us ….
So, Last night as I was watching the Village Council meeting from the comfort of my easy chair, I could hear what sounded like a rather large crowd and wondered what everyone might be there for. Could it be Schedler? Clinton Avenue? Parking? I was pretty surprised when people started going up to the microphone talking about hanging the Gay Pride flag over Village Hall. This was obviously an orchestrated demonstration of power and pride by people who fully support inclusion, welcoming, understanding, and civility toward non-heterosexuals. I am one of those people. I not only support LGBTQ, but I support all minorities, everyone who is marginalized, I support interracial and inter-religious marriage, immigrants’ rights, religious freedom, inclusion of all with physical handicaps, and every single nationality on our planet. I do not support, however, putting up one flag to indicate acceptance of one group that has most unfortunately been discriminated against. If the Village Council opts to do this, then what is to stop someone who wishes to have the Confederate flag hang over Village Hall for one month, or perhaps the newest addition to the lineup, the “Straight Flag.” We could wind up with the flag of the month, pretty much diluting the overall message of inclusion. I like to think that our Village welcomes everyone. It is not necessary to hang a flag to indicate that one group is accepted, when in fact all “groups” are accepted. I was about to get in my car and drive over to the meeting to say this, but I was afraid I would be branded as anti-gay. Sadly, a quick condemnation of someone for stating their feelings is all to common, and I would be devastated if I had to start defending myself. I hope that our elected officials will be able to say “no” to this request. Although the request is well-intended, hanging this one flag welcoming one group would be wrong.
“Tolerance” as a social virtue is a relatively recent concept and specifically refers to the quality that is the opposite of bigotry.
“Tolerance” is not the same as niceness or politeness, though it can accompany those traits.
People who stand for tolerance stand against bigotry. And people who stand against bigotry may absolutely be angry, and even rude. They may have no time or patience for bigotry. They are still standing against bigotry. The concept of tolerance does not include “tolerating” bigotry.
Please remember this before you again pull out the tired trope of “you’re not putting up with my bigotry, therefore you’re intolerant.”
Ridgewood NJ, Siobhan Winograd, self-appointed Mistress of Niceness, went to the podium and started whining about why can’t everyone be nice and how people’s comments are not pleasant and then she suggested that people’s comments should be cut to three minutes from five. Said she had done a bunch of research about other towns and we have more time allowed than many towns. And then she went on past the buzzer for more than five minutes.
Mayor Knudsen stated that she was trying to think of how to accommodate MORE speakers, not fewer. She was considering one possibility of shortening each speaker’s time but lengthening the time slot to 40 minutes. Clearly the Mayor is an advocate for the people and wants to hear from all of us.
The meeting went really smoothly and was very business like. Even residents who had frustrations to air were treated respectfully. All the former moaning and groaning about CIVILITY was completely unnecessary because really all we had to do was get rid of Aronsohn-Pucciarelli-Hauck and the air in the room cleared instantly.
Ridgewood NJ, After a federal court judge in Newark denied the dismissal of a freedom of speech violation lawsuit filed by a political operative against the City of Hoboken after he was ejected from the October 21 city council meeting.
Its seems that speech can not restricted during public comment at a council meeting . The previous mayor Paul Aronsohn and his administration tried many times either through rules, ordinances ,intimidation or silly anti free speech committees like the “Civility Committee”.
While readers best describe the new council ,”it’s amazing to watch the new council meetings. Respect for all those who ask questions. Even questions that are asked are answered or will be researched and followed up on. Keep up the good work.”
A reader suggests that some Section’s of the Village Code may violate an individual’s right to Freedom of Speech , we are not so sure :
“Except upon consent of the Council, by the majority vote of those present, each person addressing the Council pursuant to this section shall be required to limit his remarks to five minutes and shall at no time engage in any personally offensive or abusive remarks. On a hearing on ordinances on second reading, a person who has previously addressed the Council on the issue may be permitted a period of no more than an additional five minutes, after all others desirous of speaking on the issue have had an opportunity to do so, provided the comments of the speaker are not repetitive. The Chair shall call any speaker to order who violates any provision of this section.”
As does this one:
“Any person who shall disturb the peace of the Council, make impertinent or slanderous remarks or conduct himself in a boisterous manner while addressing the Council shall be forthwith barred by the presiding officer from further audience before the Council, except that if the speaker shall submit to proper order under these rules, permission for him to continue may be granted by a majority vote of the Council.”
How perfectly ironic is it, that the civility and civic harmony that Ex-mayor Aronsohn was purportedly seeking, and supposedly trying to engender, by way of his signature series of so-called “civility forums”, has at long last come, almost like the break of dawn, the contrast being so stark and the transition so swift, and the only change that was required to bring it about was to dislodge his and his sidekicks’ sorry arses out of office!!! Ahhhh…. change is good. Change we can believe in. Si se puede! GO SCRATCH, P.A.! And let us enjoy our permanent vacation from watching you look down your nose at the rest of us from the VC dais.
Ridgewood NJ, An editorial by Paul Greenberg, Los Angeles Times Syndicate, entitled “The roots of restlessness, How to restore civility” was published on September 30, 1994. Greenberg’s distaste for burgeoning talk radio success is clear. But so is his impatience with those of his editorial colleages who ignore the root causes of public revulsion with bad actors in electoral politics. Here’s the money quote:
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“Year after year, all of us editorial writers have written dutiful editorials, denouncing public apathy. So when the people take an interest in their affairs, and rise up roaring like a great beast, what do we do? We wring our hands over the decline of civility in public discourse.
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“The best way to restore civility would be to address the causes of its decline. If the natives grow restless, they may just have something to be restless about.”
. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=861&dat=19940930&id=b9ROAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BEsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5560,6145661&hl=en
So, nearly 22 years ago, we already had a perfect answer for Borg and Aronsohn’s current disingenuous hand-wringing, pearl-clutching, and fainting couch swooning over citizens speaking their minds in unvarnished ways over matters of public interest.
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