The message from opponents is "how DARE you criticize my words!" - Granite Grok

The message from opponents is “how DARE you criticize my words!”

All politics is local.  While this spitting match is local, the overall theme is "newly rich move into small hamlet, starts wanting the ‘left behind’ amenities", wants to remake town.

 

Well, it seems like I have crawled under the skin of those that are unhappy that I dared to criticize  what they wrote in pushing for higher taxes in one of the Lakes Region’s towns.  What did they expect?  To be able to lead the charge on raising spending in their town, Moultonborough, and not be challenged?  Why shouldn’t they be challenged?  They have fallen right into proving the stereotype of the newly rich moving into a small town and then wanting it change to fit their vision.  

 

Did I use satire to skewer the St. Amand’s Letters (especially the Missus’s)?  Sure did!  Would I do it again?  Sure would! When someone moves into a town, complains about what it doesn’t have, and even takes the Selectmen to task for them thinking about their future financial needs for their retirements over her view of what the Town needs now (regardless of the burden put on the taxpayers), satire is the tool to use.

 

I also was told that in setting up last week’s Selectmen’s meeting, she read my satire to her children and then complained it hurt their feelings.  So, now, it’s "all about the children" meme to score political points (something that I utterly despise – keep the politics between the adults and leave the kids out of it).

 

Let’s review:

  • She writes a Letter that is publicly printed.
  • I comment on it in a bloggy way on MoultonboroCitizensAlliance.org site (now only available on GraniteGrok)
  • She is upset that I wrote a response.
  • She reads it to her children (so I’m told)
  • They get upset (so I’m told)
  • She brings their tears to the next Selectboard – complains about free speech.
  • The Chair of their Selectboard browbeats the poor unsuspecting MCA folks

Note what is NOT mentioned! 

Did Karel Crawford call me?  Email me?  It’s not like I stay in a cave and keep to myself.  Nope, she didn’t.  She decided to make political points on her own with her own rant.

Ms. Crawford – you want to call me out? 

Here’s a public forum – come on Meet The New Press!   It’s easy when I’m not present to defend myself – now show up where I am present.

The following appeared in their local paper – even though the reporter called me (and accurately quoted me), I can’t link to the paper as it is a paid subscription (even though GraniteGrok & GilfordGrok have a paid subscription to their sister paper, The Gilford Steamer, I was not given the opportunity to do so).

 

So to recap, what do we have here?  An elected GOVERNMENTAL official deciding what is legitimate free speech and what is not.  As readers of this site know, the Bill of Right has does not include the right of not being offended.  Government, whether elected, appointed, or bureaucrat, is not allowed to decide what political speech is allowable and what is not.  According to law,  the Bill of Rights is to protect me against government censorship (or attempts to do so), and not the other way around.

A fisking after the jump

 The fallout over a letter to the Moultonboro Board of Selectmen sparked anger among some and led two members of the board to express their dismay at the situation publicly. At the board’s meeting last week, Chair Karel Crawford told the board and the public in attendance that she wanted to step down for a moment, to address the Moultonboro Citizens Alliance as a citizen.

As a citizen.  Sorry, when you are speaking at your board meeting, to people that oppose what you support, about something that they did not write (but did initially have on their site), the weight of your office does walk down with you as you walk to the floor.  YOUR speech is seen as political speech.  Period.

And you couldn’t even be bothered to invite me to the lovefest? Awe, fa shizzle…. 

After she asked those in attendance ithey would prefer she sat in the audience, no one spoke.

Perhaps the word "intimidation" fits? 

Referring to a letter to the selectmen that had been satirized on the Alliance’s Web site and the Granite Grok site,

GraniteGrok – that would be me! Er, no space between Granite and Grok, if you please.

Crawford called the words “hurtful and mean-spirited” and told members of the Alliance in attendance that she had “lost respect” for their organization.

The upshot is that she was ticked before this meeting as the MCA folks have mounted a credible campaign that ALMOST brought SB2 voting into Moultonborough (they certainly are opposing her politically as to how Moultonborough should be run).   Enacting SB2 would lessen the power of elected officials and move that balance point to the ordinary citizen. 

“Is this what the Alliance has come to?” Crawford asked. “Entertaining readers with hurtful, mean-spirited words?”

Again, try the link – hate speech is Obama’s pastor say "G*****n America!"  It is people like the Westboro Baptist congregation shouting at funerals that soldiers die because America protects gays.  It is Islamofascists killing people for not being "Islamic enough". 

Telling the Alliance to take responsibility for the satirized letter, Crawford also asked them to show some respect for volunteers in town government.

Notice what she said – she did not take ME on – she took on her political opponents.  Why? She basically is trying to browbeat the messengers and not the author – at least, not to my face.  

Ripping up the paper from which she read her statement, Crawford returned to her seat.

Nice political theater – certainly gets the reporters’ attention! 

Selectmen Ed Charest also took a moment to speak as a citizen on the matter. “After reading through it, I was dumbfounded, disturbed,with a touch of anger and real sadness to see what we’ve come to,” said Charest. “What was on that letter was hurtful.

OK, that’s twice.  Let’s be clear here.  ALL that was done was to take the attitude that Moultonborough’s beleagured taxpayers needed a bit of defense and then parse her words and the attitude that I saw driving them. 

Again, the lesson here is that when you put yourself out into the public arena, you cannot assume that everyone will agree with your view.  You cannot assume that all that oppose you will remain silent.  And if you think that your words should not be mocked or satirized,  you also have a set of rose colored glasses (or are extremely naive).

I heard how the anti-SB2 folks were waging their war against the MCA folks. If ALL they can muster against what I said is an emotional appeal, it shows that they lack the logical argument to support their supposition that higher spending is a benefit.  Or allowing ordinary voters to vote within the privacy of the ballot booth is a detriment to society.  Again, the question always should be asked concerning governmental spending is "a need, or a want?".  Is this the proper role of government, or if there was truly a need, wouldn’t the private sector already be filling that need (and usually, more efficiently as well)? 

We’ve developed in this country the politics of personal destruction. The person who wrote that letter had every right to.

Again, that would be me.  Again, I point out that if one cannot parse your opponent’s words, there is no discourse left – there is only silence (which effectively ends the argument, which would suit them just fine). 

LOOK AT HOW SHE CATAGORIZES YOUR TOWN!  As a governmental official, you have to be aware that your office colors your speech. Can you not defend your own town as she denigrated it (re: a proper supermarket….no full service athletic club"?)

To belittle it destroys volunteerism and this country little by little.”

I belittled no effort of volunteerism – I was disagreeing with political speech. You want belittlement, try MyDD or Daily Kos.  Want mean spirited?  Go to those sites and then reread my letter.  I hardly lower myself to their level of antics.

Charest said that in the past two years, he had seen the community in Moultonboro “almost destroyed” by such situations. He noted that it would be wonderful if people formed a “Coalition of Concerned Citizens to put an end to this madness.” The actions of Crawford and Charest were greeted with praise by some, and with criticism by others.

Remember, divisive is an emotionally charged word that basically means "how DARE you not agree with me.  By that very fact – you are horrible!!" 

In an effort to categorize opposing speech as hateful, is it a mere attempt to silence that opposing view.  Not by logical efforts, but by employing emotional means and casting those that oppose them as "mean" people.  Mean people are not to be listened to – so all of you out there that have not chosen sides – don’t listen to them!

Alliance member Rick Heath said that their actions felt like a “setup,” noting the presence of several members of the RSPT, including the author of the letter.

And again, I certainly was not invited….Rick, you are correct – a setup. 

Heath was not present at the meeting, but reviewed a tape of the meeting. Heath disagreed with the actions of the selectmen in stepping down for a moment during a meeting of the Board of Selectmen to speak on the issue. “If the selectmen did this at a planning board or municipal needs committee meeting and they wanted to speak as a private citizen, fine,” said Heath. “But when they’re sitting as selectmen during a meeting of the board, when they know they have a captive audience, and there was nothing in the agenda about it, it was an obvious setup to embarrass the Moultonboro Citizens Alliance.

Well said.  Take out the opponents (MCA) by castigating them in an emotional ambush. Yup, that’s polite!

Al Hume, another member of the Alliance, said that he also disagreed with the actions of Crawford and Charest, questioning how they could speak as private citizens while standing behind the desk in the meeting room.

The letter in question? Lisa St. Amand, a member of the Re
creational Strategic PlanningTeam,wrote a letter to selectmen back in February,urging them to support a community/senior center.

Abbreviated back story – what started out as a Senior Center is mushrooming faster than the ash cloud at Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption.  THAT’s what a lot of the fuss is about, and the MCA folks do not support it.  And DO support enacting SB2 style voting. 

Hume said that the Alliance posted her letter, along with others written for and against the project on their site. Several members of the Alliance have urged voters not to support the articles for the community/ senior center voted on at Town Meeting this year.

Skip Murphy, a prominent Gilford blogger who has been providing the Alliance with technical support for theirWeb site, satirized the letters of Lisa St. Amand and her husband, John St. Amand, who wrote his letter to local newspapers.

Like I said – go public, and you have to be willing to accept the public’s comments. 

Going line by line, Murphy added commentary to the St.Amand’s letters and posted it on the site he shares with other local area bloggers, the Granite Grok.

Er, that’s GraniteGrok – no space, please. 

“We continue to call ourselves a community, however, we leave for most of our needs outside of the library, town hall, post office, and a school event,” wrote St. Amand in her letter to the selectmen.

“So, a community is now defined by this newly arrived person by what is or what is not in town for “things” it possess rather than for the people that are in it? She concentrates not on the bonds that have already existed for years between its residents but for the buildings in town (or lack thereof)?” Murphy wrote in response to St. Amand’s statement.

Murphy said that his commentary on Lisa St. Amand’s letter was not about her personality, but about her words.

The satire rather reflected his opinion on the actions of some citizens who move to New Hampshire, Murphy said. While noting that the St. Amands had moved up from Massachusetts, he acknowledged that he, too, was an “escapee.”

Escapee means "I accept the Live Free or Die attitude and accept the fact that low taxes means a lower level of governmental services.  I wished the reporter had mentioned "transplants" – "I miss the amentities and I’m willing for taxes to go up". 

“My whole philosophy is that people move up here,and some want to remake the small communities into their own image,” said Murphy. “I made my commentary not about her personality but about her words, and she was not being very kind to Moultonboro.

I wish the reporter had quoted this part of her Letter (and my response)"

I feel as if you all know my thoughts on the Recreation Strategic Plan based on my previous letter I read. Furthermore, I am in awe that over three hundred signatures did not open your eyes to see how important this vision is to the community and come forth with support.

And it goes down hill from here.  Let’s see – 4,300 residents, 300 signatories – for the sake of 6.97% of the townfolk, let’s build us a building!  Funny, I always thought it was a majority that usually carried the day – did the Missus forget the other 93% that didn’t sign it?

You know, if someone called me stupid ("…did not open your eyes to see how important…"), I’d not be all that impressed with whatever is being pitched to me.  Influencing people? Absolutely….just not the way she thinks….

Or this!

When I moved here a year and a half ago, despite my skepticism to move to a small community, I was repeatedly told that this was a small but cozy community.

Small.  Cozy.  Nice words – admirable words.  They connote a certain life style, a certain atmosphere, that is shared and accepted by all.  And no one was lying to you either.  Moultonborough is just that kind of town.

I immediately noticed that in addition to the limited amenities I would have to get accustomed to, there was no community center in which people could connect on many levels.

Oh, the privations – “limited amenities”.

Or this! 

Everything I, or anyone else I knew, wanted to do was predominately outside of this community. A theater, variety of restaurants, a proper supermarket, a pharmacy, clothes/accessory shopping, and a full service health club would all have to be sought after in other people’s communities.

Life’s tough….get over it…and yourself.  You’ve deliberately moved into a small hamlet.  Right now, I’m smelling buyer’s remorse. Oh, the indignity of it all – no place for decent shopping! 

Actually, the impression I’m getting is that it sounds like “you rubes don’t know what you are missing for the necessities of life”.  Did you ever think that once all these were added, the terms “cozy” and “small” would no longer apply?
 
Or is that the point?

Tell me?  Is this really "hate speech"?  Satirical – well, that’s what I WAS trying for.   

 

Back to the newspaper article:

Murphy said that while assisting the Alliance with their site, he saw the letter, and “being a blogger, there was good material there.”St. Amand had a different take on the situation. After hearing about it at Town Meeting from Moderator Mel Borrin,

(note: who is absolutely not part of the MCA group by ANY stretch of the imagination – and seems to dislike SB2 almost as badly). Let’s just stir up that pot, eh?

St. Amand said she then looked it up on the Moultonboro Citizens Alliance Web site. After reading it, she said she sought advice from selectmen on the best way to handle it. “I’m a new person trying to get involved in the community,” said St. Amand. “To be now known in the way this guy wants to portray me…I never met him.”

I’ve had a lot of people negatively respond to the Letters I had published in the papers and other bloggers have made sport of my posts.  Like I said, if you don’t like that treatment…..

Again (I keep having to use that word), if you write a PUBLIC Letter, EXPECT a response, especially on such an issue of raising peoples’ taxes over a want (vs a need). 

Insofar as her reaction to Crawford and Charest’s statements at the board meeting, St. Amand, who was present, said that it was great to have them “supporting me and my effort in the community.”

Hume apologized to St. Amand for the posting of the satire on the Alliance Web site, and said that he felt “really bad” about the posting.

Sorry, I think Al is a nice guy and I like him.  But in this case, he’s dead wrong.&n
bsp; He just basically gave his political opponents a club to beat him with ("if I whine enough, you have to give in again").  And mark my words, they will use it over and over again

Politics is not for the faint-hearted.  Or the thin skinned.   

The satires were removed a few days before the selectmen’s meeting, according to Hume. Murphy has said that his will remain on his site.

They certainly will remain on GraniteGrok.

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