Some people use their right of free speech under the First Amendment by writing an opinion such as the editor of our local newspaper. Some who don’t write professionally resort to blogs and others use their right to confront our elected officials by speaking at public meetings. Our new President, Barack Obama, instituted the Town Meeting, allowing citizens across the country to ask questions on the Internet and voice their opinion on matters of concern. Because what the people think really is important to him, his surveys are actually meaningful. There is no stacking the deck here.
Our President made the statement, “This key issue for America is how bad culture reinforced by bad government is crippling America and trapping the poor in disastrous situations." That is an important challenge we face today, not only in our country as a whole but in Lake Worth specifically…bad decisions that have been disastrous for our residents and decided by a few.
Our government is “by the people and for the people” and as such, if we do not speak out, how will government stay honest? How will we let them know that they have erred or even doing the right thing by the people they serve? There are a few dominate political factions within our city and I fall in the forgotten middle and believe that the real majority is not represented very well in Lake Worth.
When you disagree with someone, the first thing they want to do is shut you up, and mockingly ask you, “Can you do better than the elected officials?” Or they resort to name calling, ridicule or worse. The Editor of the Lake Worth Herald reinforced his statement Monday night when he told me that we, the people, should not be speaking in front of the Commission, “Let them do their job; we speak too much and too often,” he said. The encounter got a little heated because philosophically we are on opposite sides of a basic right in this country and one that places the U.S. far above the rest and why we are the greatest country on the planet. Anyone affiliated with the free press should understand this. Hitler would have loved our local news editor.
In order to determine if government is doing its job and functioning in a responsible manner, it has to be accountable to the people as it derives its “just powers from the consent of the governed,” not some phony statement about the historical will of the people when it is 185 people who are encouraged to show up to go “green” and be the sole determination on our beach re-design or when a Commissioner states that “this is what the people want” as an example. And it is certainly not from muffling freedom of speech.
To not confront your government could lead to injustice, loss of liberty, tyranny, and our overall general welfare.
The people’s right to speak out is one of our basic, fundamental rights in this country and why we were founded.
We have seen oppression of people all over the world. It is up to us to preserve our rights under the Constitution or someday we could lose our basic freedoms. The next time someone tries to disparage you for speaking out because you are attempting to hold your government accountable, or he just has no patience listening to what you have to say at City Hall, tell him to go tell it to Kim Jong-il.