Free speech; not so free speech

Please understand how monumental will be the vote on the fate of the public forum.

As a matter of board policy; it will or will not be part of the public record. Participants will or will not be allowed to ask legitimate questions on any subject.

The vote is to respect free speech; or to prohibit it.

Corruption and incompetence will be enabled by prohibiting free speech. Citizens have a right to petition their government; they have a right to stand face to face with their public servants and demand answers to legitimate questions;

• why won't you surrender public records of investigations of public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the leadership of the APS?
• why won't you surrender an honest accounting of the uptown administrative complex?
• why won't you commission an impartial (forensic) audit of the administration of the APS?
• why can you show no proof that you are honestly accountable to any meaningful standard of conduct in your public service?
• why will you not lead by your example; by holding yourself honestly accountable to the student standard of conduct?

There are members of the leadership of the APS who do not want those questions asked on the record. They do not want those questions asked off the record either. They want no record at all, of the fact that when they are asked to provide any proof at all that they have protected public resources from corruption and incompetence; the answer is no; and so they stonewall.

They intend to pass a policy that effectively eliminates the opportunity for citizens to ask questions about the use of power and resources that are fundamentally their own.

The servant will tell the master, what the master can do with plans for transparent accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct. It begins by rolling them into a very tight cylinder, and then sticking them up your ass.

There was a time in the history of our country when (wo)men would have said; over my dead body. And they meant it; in fact they proved that they meant it.

They would have showed up at the board meeting to stand up for what they believe in, for two minutes.

I've told the story about how we used to give tee shirts to kids that read; stand up for what you believe in; even if you are standing alone.

And then we went ahead and let them; stand alone that is. No adult behind them offering support; no adult beside them sharing the burden; no adult in front of them leading by their personal example.

And we wonder why they tore up the aquarium.


Any public servant in the APS who is not willing to hold themselves honestly accountable to the standard of conduct that they established and enforce upon students;
should resign rather immediately.

They won't though. Instead they will rewrite board policy to dis include the rights to free speech and a public forum that is on the record; so they won't have to listen to the question any more. To evade accountability for having evaded accountability.


I'm not saying these folks are evil. But when Burke wrote
all that is necessary for evil to prevail in the world,
is for good men to do nothing;
this is what he meant.

Evil doesn't prevail in the world, so much as it fills a vacuum left by those who don't care enough to push back, if pushing back requires some sacrifice.

Sacrifice is the currency of commitment. Any belief that does not warrant sacrifice in its defense, will fall, absolutely.

The right to free speech will fall Wednesday; not because of the strong argument against it; but by the lack of any argument in its support.

Two hundred years ago people fought to establish the right to petition the goverment.
Apparenly that right will now be simply given away,
because nobody will stand in its defense.

But then, two hundred years ago, Ben Franklin and others were able to spread the truth by means of newspapers.