Filibustering 101

Before noon yesterday, Marsha wrote a blog about the difference between supporting an issue and signing a particular petition, and that signing a petition ultimately means only that voters will have a choice made available to them.  About five hours later, she posted another short blog, providing a link to that petition.

Also before noon yesterday, I wrote a blog letting folks know there were some other possible amendments being sponsored by Citizens for the Protection of Voters Rights.  Six hours later, I posted another that pointed out the hypocrisy of specific arguments being used to oppose the CTLAC petition to stop the planned expansion of the Board of County Commissioners.  Finally, I added another this morning on a third topic - your attempt to deafen political discussion and how many real issues should be discussed.

Your response was not to address any of those important issues facing Clay County residents this year and raised in a total of four blogs by two authors spaced hours apart.  Your response was to file blogs, along with your friend linda5, about:

The Fitzgerald trial, the School Board meeting, a defunct committee, school impact fees, best blogging phrase, volleyball and now fillibustering, while enlisting your friend to contribute separate blogs on stories about the county fair, being new to the blogs, the Jaguar draft, the Gators spring football game and the Concert on the Green.

That's 12 separate blog titles from you two, beginning about an hour after Marsha and I had filed our two separate blogs.  Likening that to a fillibuster is as hypocritical as what you've offered as evidence that the people's right to vote for a new BCC chairman will be lost, which I pointed out in last evening's blog.

Fillibusters are conducted as part of parliamentary rules on the floor of the Senate.  Fillibusters aren't even allowed in the other House of Congress, much less being appropriate as a device to stifle an open forum for discussion like the MCS website.

Like many things in politics and life, your tactics and behavior here are areas in which we will have to disagree.  You don't have to think you're being blatantly hypocritical or manipulative, just because I do.  Nor do you have to see your actions as childishly-destructive to a healthy forum for public discussions, just because I do.

Marsha wrote about one topic and added a brief follow-up.  I wrote about two different topics. Your response is not to discuss those topics or the specific issues within, but to do your best to make sure no one else to discuss them either -  and then become personal here.

Don't liken my or Marsha's attempts to generate legitimate discussions on this website with the selfish actions you chose to use while trying to take away anyone else's to participate.  That's hypocrisy anyone should be able to see.

Michael S. Mann

michaelsmann@comcast.net

Actually my first blog "Keeping is Simple" was written Sunday morning. In it I'd said I was working on a link to the petition and then late yesterday afternoon when my Son in Law called me and sent it to me I posted another blog with the link.  They were actually posted over 24hrs apart.

http://24.23.126.8/ Petition to reduce 7 Commissioners to 5. 

Mike M.

I appreciate your platitudes about the status of free speech in our democracy and the need to use the blogs for their highest and best purpose. However, as I was reading along with a First Amendment tear in my eye, I began to reflect on the past weeks' activities on the blogs and wondered if you were able to compose your last message without cracking even a slight smile.

You started three blogs in two days talking about the CTLAC petition drive.  Your blogs are signed with a link to get a copy of the petition. It is nonsensical to assume that there is anything less than a concerted effort on the part of some bloggers to keep the petition issue front and center in order to collect signatures. No new facts being added. No new arguments.  Just a recycle bin of old tired arguments wrapped with a neat new title. In the real world, we call this a political strategy. One could also call it riding the back of the MCS to get free advertising.

My response was not to scold you and tell you that you were being disrespectful or “wasting the highest potential” of the MCS. The fact that people, including myself, felt the need to open up the discussion to something other than your tired chorus is not really a matter for you to worry about. If you want to have a pep rally for yourself, go ahead. Just don’t be offended if not everyone wants to come.

Karen Lake

Karen;

You know, I agree with some of what you say about political things here in CC but I really think you went around the corner on this one.

All three of you are guilty of spouting the same stuff. That's not an honest debate of the issues.

I'd say that if all three believe the same thing then their opinions would be reflections of each other stated in slightly different ways. Kind of like how you and Roy were pretty much mirror images of each other concerning the PAC to Protect Voter's Rights.

Now that one, in my opinion has certainly turned into a can of what's left by worms. I personally think that if the two proposals that OneMann wrote about are really coming out of that PAC then that whole crew needs to take a break.

I'm a voter, if they (and you) call that protecting my rights then I don't need or want it. I know we went through this before but you are NOT protecting my rights by trying to put these two amendments on the ballot.

What you are doing is using some high-sounding name to try to hijack a legitimate ballot for some political prize. What that prize is, is becoming clearer every day and I for one don't like it.

Filibustering is a legal and tactical action to delay the rhetoric flowing from supporters of CTLAC. 

Karen, it may be a legal tactic but this is not the Senate and you are NOT a Senator. This is plain old Clay County USA with plain folks trying to live a life without some pseudo big time political machine trying to make a big splash and be more than they are capable of being.

In case you hadn't noticed, Boss Hog never did get out of Hazard County. He was only a big fish when he stayed in his little pond. I'd say someone might want to check their weight before they start trying to swim with the big boys.

This isn't Tallahassee and I don't think any of them are going to be moving there any time soon. At least not for a job.

Linda5, is that anything like Johnny5 from Short Circuit? In my opinion, that was uncalled for. To me it ranks right up there with the CCAC crew.

Link to Roll back BCC from 5+2 TO 5

http://24.23.126.8/

Mike Heemer

Sorry Marsh, I sure didn't mean to overstate your effort to monopolize the website's subject matter.  You know, that one that set off Karen's fillibuster.  That extra 24 hours between your posts makes Karen's hostile MCS takeover seem even more inappropriate.

The kind of blogging behavior she described as (out-of-place) political tactic is similar to what we saw in person at last week's BCC meeting.  She spoke with righteous indignation to the Commission about how CTLAC had not developed its three Charter Amendment proposals in the glare of the Sunshine Law, a law she knows doesn't even apply to the meetings of political action committee meetings and was totally out of place in the discussion.

She spoke about that egregious lack of CTLAC openness at the very same time the Roy Lyons' group, Citizens for the Protection of Voters Rights, was working on its two Charter Amendment proposals.

On public record and in an open government meeting, she feigned indignation dishonestly basd on the non-applicable Sunshine Law in order to chastise one group's secret process, while the other group (using the same non-public process in attempting to put issues before the voters) is in receipt of her personal $100 contribution.

It's just another example of a continued effort at the distorted presentation of fact and theory we've seen over time on MCS, and it's not just rhetoric or tactic.  It's open dishonesty and hypocrisy.  How can we raise the bar in government if that kind of thing is just regular politics, not just accepted by people involved in politics but designed into campaign strategy?

There's an opportunity for local voters to make a lot of statements in this year's elections.  A chance for folks to say it's not acceptable outside the political arena and it's not acceptable inside either.  That they're tired of political excuses for bad behavior, and tired of it being a regular, ol' accepted part of Clay County politics.  That the bar for behavior in local government and the politics surrounding it is far too low and must be raised.

Finder, the three blogs I began were all on different specific topics, including the one you cited about Karen and Roy's secretive amendments.  If there were no honest debates, it's not because I didn't attempt to start one on three different topics about what voters will face this year.  Because each of the three topics I chose is something Karen opposes does not make them an attack on her, nor give her the right to inhibit participation in any of them, or any of all the others her fillibuster pushed aside. 

To find a petition to sign in favor of the people's right to vote this November on whether they'd prefer five or seven members of the County Commission, just click on this link:  http://24.23.126.8/

Michael S. Mann

michaelsmann@comcast.net