Smithville TODAY

"Building Bridges for Tomorrow"

While it’s one thing for a small town Mayor to overrule the majority vote of a Board of Aldermen five times in seven months, its something else to publicly thumb his nose at First Amendment free speech guarantees by shutting down citizen comments during a Board Meeting. 

Not exactly the brightest stunt of the political season, with the June 17 election right around the corner.  The spectacle was broadcast live, Monday evening, June 2, 2008, right here in the heart of the volunteer state.

Not only did Smithville Mayor Taft Hendrixson unilaterally order citizen commentary at a public meeting to be confined to three minutes, but also he resorted to the long arm of the law to enforce his dictate.  The Mayor acknowledged the staged set-up had been arranged in advance by his issuing orders to the Police Chief. 

Two citizen speakers were led from the lectern to their seats by two armed City Police officers, for the “crime” of objecting to the Mayor’s attempt to clamp a lid on inquiry and dissent. The presence of a 300-pound police officer accented the ham-handed intimidation effort.

Near the start of World War II, I witnessed the government’s abandonment of due process when thousands of Japanese-Americans were imprisoned behind barbed wire at Arcadia, California’s, Santa Anita Race Track. 

Due to panicky political paranoia, these, and thousands more loyal Americans, were shipped away to ten "relocation centers" where they were housed in poorly heated tar-paper barracks, fenced in by barbed wire, and scrutinized by guard towers manned by the U.S. army.  There were no individual judicial hearings and no chance to protest legally.  The confinement resulted in across-the-board loss of homes and businesses.

Not one of those loyal Japanese-Americans betrayed this nation!

When the war ended, I assumed the days of tyranny were behind us!

Master World War II propagandist, Joseph Goebbles, supported "free speech"---providing the speaker spouted the party line.  In contrast, the United States Supreme Court in the case of New York Times v. Sullivan, observed that "the central meaning of the First Amendment" to the United States Constitution features the right of a citizen to criticize government and government officials.   The same First Amendment, also guarantees citizen rights "to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Law and order is one thing!  Arbitrary misuse of police power to silence inquiry and dissent is something else!  It doesn’t jibe with legal due process. Smithville Mayor’s attempted prior restraint to suppress free speech, is dangerously out-of-kilter with the American Bill of Rights.  

Smithville’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen is positioned to promote free speech.  Why not adopt a protocol authorizing any citizen to place an item on the Board’s agenda and then be allowed, even encouraged, to publicly speak his or her mind at any meeting of the Board?

City taxpayers underwrite the salaries of all City employees.   Elected officials who thumb their noses at employers whose tax dollars put bread and butter on their tables can be replaced. 

Suppressing or ignoring voter sentiment earns early retirement!

WLJ

The Art of Trampling Free Speech

June 8, 2008