I'm making three blog posts about the two Concord Journal
articles (here and here)
published last week about what they frame as "communication failures" between townspeople and Town government. I am going to publish them backwards for how blogs usually work (last in the series first) because they will go online within seconds of one another, and that way they will be read from top-to-bottom in order.
The Concord Journal cast these issues as one of civility. I think that is NOT the most important story here. The far larger story is one of Civil Rights: representatives of our government have been found to be suppressing the civil rights of citizens... and doing so unapologetically.
Here's the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I point out that the words "tone" and "civility" do not appear anywhere there. There are no modifiers such as "but only in cases where the government likes what's being said." No, there is NO prohibition or abridgment permitted, and are not considered optional. Are we not a nation of laws?
"Tone," I must stress, is a protected expression of freedom of speech. And I was petitioning the government for redress of a grievance. Instead, I got rebuke and denouncement for expressing my views. The article quotes the selectman who denied me both redress
and freedom of speech as doing so intentionally on both counts. I feel my civil rights were violated -- two-fold -- while the entire Board of Selectmen stood by. (And my "tone" was utterly and completely distorted into something it truly was not... but that is a totally subjective argument I feel I should leave here.)
What is our obsession with "tone" here in Concord, anyway? Tone being in the ear of the beholder, by the way. Should it really be the norm to reject the content of speech when the government doesn't like the "tone"? It seems from the article that the more Selectmen who don't like the "tone", the more justified that rejection is. What's happening here is that hyper-focus on "tone" is suppressing free speech. It is the government squelching dissenting opinion. I don't believe that to be the values our community has historically held dear and practiced famously. In fact, one way to judge the depth of a democracy is how dissenting views are treated -- and I'm afraid we're not passing in this area.
For every person unhinged by "tone" I have to ask: What do you think the "tone" was like here in Concord in the 1770's leading up to the Provincial Congresses and the Concord Fight? And the highly revered Concordian Henry Thoreau -- often pointed to as a moral compass for
the generations that followed: what about his "tone"?
Now we look back proudly at those "outspoken" folks, who were following their sense of moral right. We can't be proud of them yet shun frank or strong speech now -- at least not without being embarrassingly hypocritical. If we had been so hung up by "tone" in the past, our history would have likely turned out very differently.
If we want to really solve our problems here in Concord, find solutions to our challenges, and live into the future as the vibrant and fruitful community we have been historically, we have got to drop our worship of "tone" and start really talking about the issues -- dissenting opinions and all.
Now, I'm not calling for fisticuffs and ad hominium attacks left-and-right. What I am strongly recommending is that we stop branding and dismissing dissidents and start listening to each other. And talking together. Let's make our forbearers proud of how courageously we can sustain community with one another, even while acknowledging our differences.
published last week about what they frame as "communication failures" between townspeople and Town government. I am going to publish them backwards for how blogs usually work (last in the series first) because they will go online within seconds of one another, and that way they will be read from top-to-bottom in order.
The Concord Journal cast these issues as one of civility. I think that is NOT the most important story here. The far larger story is one of Civil Rights: representatives of our government have been found to be suppressing the civil rights of citizens... and doing so unapologetically.Here's the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I point out that the words "tone" and "civility" do not appear anywhere there. There are no modifiers such as "but only in cases where the government likes what's being said." No, there is NO prohibition or abridgment permitted, and are not considered optional. Are we not a nation of laws?
"Tone," I must stress, is a protected expression of freedom of speech. And I was petitioning the government for redress of a grievance. Instead, I got rebuke and denouncement for expressing my views. The article quotes the selectman who denied me both redress
and freedom of speech as doing so intentionally on both counts. I feel my civil rights were violated -- two-fold -- while the entire Board of Selectmen stood by. (And my "tone" was utterly and completely distorted into something it truly was not... but that is a totally subjective argument I feel I should leave here.)
What is our obsession with "tone" here in Concord, anyway? Tone being in the ear of the beholder, by the way. Should it really be the norm to reject the content of speech when the government doesn't like the "tone"? It seems from the article that the more Selectmen who don't like the "tone", the more justified that rejection is. What's happening here is that hyper-focus on "tone" is suppressing free speech. It is the government squelching dissenting opinion. I don't believe that to be the values our community has historically held dear and practiced famously. In fact, one way to judge the depth of a democracy is how dissenting views are treated -- and I'm afraid we're not passing in this area.For every person unhinged by "tone" I have to ask: What do you think the "tone" was like here in Concord in the 1770's leading up to the Provincial Congresses and the Concord Fight? And the highly revered Concordian Henry Thoreau -- often pointed to as a moral compass for
the generations that followed: what about his "tone"?
Now we look back proudly at those "outspoken" folks, who were following their sense of moral right. We can't be proud of them yet shun frank or strong speech now -- at least not without being embarrassingly hypocritical. If we had been so hung up by "tone" in the past, our history would have likely turned out very differently.
If we want to really solve our problems here in Concord, find solutions to our challenges, and live into the future as the vibrant and fruitful community we have been historically, we have got to drop our worship of "tone" and start really talking about the issues -- dissenting opinions and all.
Now, I'm not calling for fisticuffs and ad hominium attacks left-and-right. What I am strongly recommending is that we stop branding and dismissing dissidents and start listening to each other. And talking together. Let's make our forbearers proud of how courageously we can sustain community with one another, even while acknowledging our differences.
