When an official attacks the lawful speech rights of a citizen, he opposes his self-interest, in career, in an inflated view of himself, or whatever limited need, against the very liberty of a fellow citizen.

He rationalizes – usually in the most feeble, embarrassing way – that his needs are the needs of all the community.

An American community – a true and well-ordered American community – respects and defends the liberty of every citizen against the selfish transgressions and expediency of others, even if those others are public officials.

Officials in Memphis may not understand this now, but we who exercise these lawful Constitutional rights will not yield them.

Best wishes to the defenders of free speech in Memphis.

John Adams, adams@freewhitewater.com

Readers to Free Whitewater know that officials in Whitewater, WI conducted a months-long search to learn the identity of an anonymous blogger, only to confront the wrong man!

When apparently thin-skinned officials in Memphis try to overcome the Constitutional right of anonymous free speech, they should and must be required to provide a compelling reason.

They have offered nothing, but even something will not be enough – tissue-paper stories about what “seems” to be true, or asinine “risk assessments,” would be children’s excuses.

A justification so broad that it is useful anytime is legitimate at no time.

A noted Memphis blogger, and a resident of Whitewater, both alerted me to official transgressions against First Amendment rights in Memphis, TN.

Another Memphis blogger, an anonymous critic of police leadership failures in Memphis, is facing a lawsuit from the city and its police director, designed to force an ISP to divulge his or her identity.

Why the lawsuit? We don’t know, because the director refuses to provide a reason.

The absence of an explanation is itself revealing – legitimate policing can almost always offer a clear explanation for its actions.

Here is the blogger’s website –
http://mpdenforcer20.blogspot.com/
Here is a Memphis editorial questioning the lawsuit –
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/jul/25/editorials-blue-crushing-free-speech/

Much has been made of LP presidential nominee Bob Barr’s focus on criticism of Senator McCain as a way to attract otherwise Republican voters.

(McCain’s likely judicial picks are just one source of complaint.)

It’s a backwards tactic – if Barr wants to attract voters on the right, he needs to show that he can critique the left. To attract one group, he needs to contend skillfully against its opposite.

Barr may not see this, and its one reason that he may not – on election day – exceed the traditional libertarian share of the vote.

We have a city website and city newsletter, a news and sports website that often reproduces city announcements, and a weekly local newspaper that does the same.

(The Royal Purple showed only slight inquisitiveness under its outgoing staff.)

There is seldom any background, any description of how people actually conduct themselves, from these media.

Solid conventional reporters would offer that information, because it lets residents know how incumbents (and those who benefit from incumbents) actually conduct themselves.

These three media offer a sanitized account of events styled, ironically, as proper or professional. It’s ironic because serious professional reporters would offer more.

Incumbents are bolstered from these three media, so much so that they often confuse an entrenched incumbent’s view with the very truth of life itself.

Who will present a more complete view? If Whitewater didn’t have blogs, there’d be no other independent, published view. We have two local municipal/political blogs, to my knowledge: Conservative Thoughts from Whitewater, and Free Whitewater.

Other than that, it’s status quo-bolstering.

While it may seem to be a good time to be an incumbent, but it’s also an opportunity for blogging.

I am not sure how many people watch public meetings on our cable access channel (Station 13), but the number is sure to be smaller after the cable provider moves the station to a different channel.

(This was a decision of the cable company and not our local station.)

Fewer viewers overall will surely mean fewer viewers for Common Council or Planning Commission meetings.

This will leave Whitewater with less direct access to government proceedings, with more reliance on secondary sources to learn about events.

(Videos on the city website are an imperfect substitute for an accessible TV channel.)

Months ago, I wrote about former Gov. Schaefer of
Maryland, who disgraced himself and his state by trying to intimidate lawful political protesters.

I asked if something like that could happen in Whitewater, knowing at the time that is was possible. Sure enough, officials in Whitewater went down that path.

What’s happened in Maryland, though, since the Schaefer Administration?

More of the same, under a different administration (now itself out of office.)

Among the Maryland officials’ actions – classifying as a possible security threat Quakers who were trying to get a prisoner off death row.

These actions in Maryland represent a failure of judgment, and abandonment of useful, conventional, legitimate policing in the community interest.

Here’s the link to a story on events in the Old Line State:

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127636.html

Whitewater is a small town, with a population only over fourteen thousand. Not far around us, though, are larger cities, and corporations, with intricate hierarchies.

We have joined the modern and modernizing trend toward greater specialization, in committees, titles, and departments.

Our culture has not kept pace with our specialization – BAU (business as usual) in Whitewater tends toward the informal and traditional.

No one opposes BAU more than I do.

We are so small that we cannot say we have a substantial bureaucracy, but we should acknowledge that the tiny one we have functions oddly.

It’s torn between being a tool of BAU and developing an independent, unbiased integrity.

There is far to go, and mere structure without principled reform of our government culture will not serve us.