Reader says Criticism and the resulting public discourse, I believe, does much more good than harm
I am a strong believer in free speech no matter how stupid, hateful, or unpopular that speech is, but I suppose if you twisted my arm I could compromise and allow bans on one form of speech. That would be blowhard elected officials singlehandedly defying the New Jersey State Sunshine Law by egotistically grabbing the public microphone (!) and executing one of the most exquisite, hypocritical, logic-twisting, irony-defining, triple-twister-with-a-backflip dives into the capacious pool of numbnutted man-child foolishness imaginable by breezily calling for censorship and limits on free speech – which I find hateful and “excessively objectionable.”
I’m just kidding of course, because by allowing people to express their wrongheaded opinions at imprudently-convened unofficially official privately public meetings, you are giving others a chance to respond to and criticize those ideas (see: these comments). The resulting public discourse, I believe, does much more good than harm. And although some mistakenly claim that restrictions on free speech are unlikely to be abused in Orwellian and Authoritarian ways in the USA (what with our infallible government and all), you’ll find plenty of such instances from the last century of American history alone.
Well said.
Yay
Well put – I support truth through humor.
But seriously folks, this meeting was right out of a Saturday Night Live skit. The only thing that’s transparent with this trio of Councilpeople is their desire to head off any opinions that may differ from their own. After all, these 3 have “uncivilized” their way to publicly humiliating their political enemies and shouting down those of their constituents that have dared to air a dissenting word in the past. Seems like anyone with half a brain (that’s not already on the Council) would see right through this. Ba dum bum.
#3 is so correct.
I guess I have to go to one of these meetings and see this behavior firsthand….
Well #5 one meeting might not give you the opportunity to see there behavior. It really goes on a case to cace bases. If your at a meeting that everything goes the Councils way then the seem to be angles. You must be there when something or someone disrupts there plans. This may take a few meeting. You can watch the meeting on your computer or live stream.
Especially wait until someone at the mike says something that ruffles the feathers of Mr. Pucciarelli or Ms. Hauck. They will interrupt the person in a heartbeat, trampling on the citizen’s lousy five minutes of time in order to set their own record straight. Citizens are never allowed to speak except during public comments. But these two can take as much time as they wish to interrupt a citizen and redirect the topic. It is intimidating to some, infuriating to some, sickening to all.