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Tyranny starts at the local local level

Behold!

Think about this: discussing city business at your dinner table without council approval would be against the law, if this city council got its way. That is, you either get permission from Miss Sonja, or you face the wrath of the functionaries Miss Sonja sends after you.

Now, this is clearly unconstitutional. And it would get laughed out of court. But what’s pertinent here is that a city council presumed it had the power to do this.

Speaking frankly? This is why tar, feathers, pitchforks, and rails were invented. And the people of Gould, Arkansas should go forth immediately and avail themselves of those things, is my advice.

Some assembly required.

(h/t Ana via facebook)

55 Replies to “Tyranny starts at the local local level”

  1. Pablo says:

    Whatever you do, don’t look at the demographics of Gould, Arkansas, racist.

    O!

  2. Bob Reed says:

    So really though, how do they expect to enforce this anyway? That’s nearly as vapid as their notion that they could do such a thing in the first place.

    Of course, there are places now that “ban” smoking in one’s own home!

    Which would make me take it up again should such a ban come to my neighborhood.

  3. Stephanie says:

    Does this cunt own the ball gag franchise in Gould, Arkansas, too?

    Words fail.

  4. Bob Reed says:

    Pablo; how could you. Now we have to applaud their far-sighted, pragmatic, reform; or else, well, you know

  5. Pablo says:

    Goddammit, Bob, they know better! That’s why they’re in charge. Just shut up, OK? You don’t understand.

    /I’d rather be gun shopping

  6. Abe Froman says:

    Whatever you do, don’t look at the demographics of Gould, Arkansas, racist.

    And here I thought that only over-educated white people could be this stupid. Berkeley. Gould. Whatevs.

  7. Bob Reed says:

    Pablo, it’s better my man. It’s only fair, after all those years of oppression. A reparation-based absolute moral authority!

  8. Darleen says:

    Obama really is pining for being a dictator

    “I’m sympathetic to your view that this would be easier if I could do this entirely on my own. It would mean all these conversations I’ve had over the last three weeks, I could have been spending time with Malia and Sasha instead,” President Obama said at a town hall.

  9. zino3 says:

    “Pablo posted on7/22 @ 8:17 pm

    Whatever you do, don’t look at the demographics of Gould, Arkansas, racist.

    O!”

    Pablo, you racist prick!

    Are you inferring that a black woman doesn’t want anyone else to have first amendment rights? Are you inferring that she is saying: “SHUT THE FUCK UP! I KNOW BEST, EVEN THOUGH I AM AS DUMB AS A BOX OF HAMMERS?!

    Ho! Ho!

    This is only the beginning, my friend.

    I am afraid. Very afraid…

  10. Pablo says:

    This is funny, but there’s a little lesson in there too.

    Cross is also charged with driving after suspension because, he said, his license was suspended for falling behind on child support.

  11. Joe says:

    I knew there was a reason I never lived in Arkansas…beyond the Clintons.

  12. Pablo says:

    I just wish we’d hit the wall already, TLD. August 2 is fine with me, except I know that’s bullshit.

    The slow motion train wreck of America makes me sad. I’m ready for rising from the ashes, and I’d really like to be there instead of here.

  13. sdferr says:

    Might we suggest cocktails?

  14. happyfeet says:

    poor stupid person

  15. John Bradley says:

    Which one, ‘feets?

    It’s, as they say, a target-rich environment these days.

  16. Stephanie says:

    Hey, Pablo, I live in Atlanta, we know rising from the ashes. We just didn’t plan on the second coming of Sherman. Although, now that I think about it, the republicans lead the way in that revival, too. 40 acres and a mule!

  17. newrouter says:

    yea but they had a public school education

  18. happyfeet says:

    mostly that poor sow on the city council

  19. Stephanie says:

    I dissemble that remark. Gwinnett County has (mostly) excellent public schools. And a republican school board. Atlanta, OTOH, still wandering around the plantation only Kwame is in charge. I didn’t say that ‘City of’ was able to keep the Phoenix from getting singed charred.

  20. newrouter says:

    “mostly that poor sow”

    fat peeps rule
    pencil neck geeks drool

  21. SDN says:

    Joe, my family came from Arkansas, and all of them still there voted for Clinton…. to get him out of the state.

  22. newrouter says:

    yes let’s put corrupt black democrats in charge of everything. you go charlie.

  23. newrouter says:

    mr. green is the green still frozen?

  24. newrouter says:

    i know let’s put al sharpton on @ 6 to show our msnbc multiculti bonifides.

  25. Ernst Schreiber says:

    [T]his would be easier if I could do this entirely on my own. It would mean all these conversations I’ve had over the last three weeks, I could have been spending time with Malia and Sasha instead,” President Obama said at a town hall.

    I don’t know about you, but I’d sure like to organize America to see to it that Barack has plenty of time on his hands to spend with his girls.

  26. bh says:

    In the Google Reader version of this post the video is from Vimeo and it’s the Sesame Street puppets performing a Beastie Boys song.

    Not kidding. It’s the weirdest thing.

    How the hell did that happen?

  27. bh says:

    This video to be specific. I starred the post and then looked at it again and it’s still the wrong video.

    I could maybe understand getting a different youtube video somehow but a video from an entirely different site?

  28. LTC John says:

    God Almighty… I wish I could give a scourge to the Mayor, so that he could cleanse the City Council, as Christ did the Temple of the moneychangers…

  29. serr8d says:

    I just checked in from my g00gle reader, and the video is synched. None of the beastlies being puppeteered, unless you count that crew in Gould as being Puppeteered.

    You’ve possibly annoyed some anonymous sorts, bh?

  30. bh says:

    Heh, I hope not, serr8d.

    I just checked again and now it’s back to normal. Really weird glitch. Maybe that video was in a post on another RSS feed and… I don’t know.

  31. The Monster says:

    To fully appreciate the layers of stupidity here… If some residents think they might want to form a group, they can’t even talk about it with each other. The mere act of discussing the possibility of forming a group would itself be illegal.

    Mad props to Hizzoner the Mayor for refusing to sign the ordinance, and promising to violate it if it’s passed over his veto. If it does pass, I hope Larry the Cable Guy does a performance at the largest hall in the town, with one of his old-style “What is this, Russia?” rants.

  32. BT says:

    This is not so much tyranny as it is pure ignorance. I wonder if the city can even afford a city attorney to look over these ordinances.

    This sounds like a struggle between the mayor and council.

    The City Council adopted an ordinance last week making it illegal to form any kind of group without its permission.

    That is a clear violation of the Constitution, legal scholars agree. But it is also a sign of just how nasty politics has gotten in Gould, a farming town of 1,100 some 70 miles southeast of Little Rock, where members of the Council have struggled with a local political group that seeks to influence how the town is governed. The mayor, Earnest Nash Jr., also happens to be a member of the political group, the Gould Citizens Advisory Council.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/us/20arkansas.html?_r=1

    Also reading the Arkansas papers version of the story i get the sense that this advisory commission is meeting with the mayor discussing official business without publicly announcing the meeting so the general public can attend. In Georgia that would be against the Open Meeting laws.

    In small towns riffs between the executive and legislative branches of government are legend. I served with 3 mayors in the 4 years i was on council. This council overstepped its bounds. And the advisory group appears to be trying to bypass democracy by becoming a de facto shadow government.

    That’s a shame because i think their hearts are in the right place, judging by some of the things they were able to accomplish as volunteers.

    Perhaps the county or state needs to offer mediation.

  33. Jeff G. says:

    It’s tyranny. Petty tyranny, but still tyranny.

  34. BT says:

    Jeff,

    I truly don’t think that was the council’s intent, any more than i believe the advisory groups intent was to perform a coup d’etat.

  35. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I believe you’re confusing intention with motivation.

  36. Pablo says:

    Also reading the Arkansas papers version of the story i get the sense that this advisory commission is meeting with the mayor discussing official business without publicly announcing the meeting so the general public can attend. In Georgia that would be against the Open Meeting laws.

    If the Advisory Council isn’t a government entity, how can their meeting violate Open Meetings laws? Is any meeting the Mayor attends subject? If he sits down with the the Veterans Basket Crocheting Guild, or any other private group, does that require public notice? No.

    Me, I’d organize a group just outside of town where we’d stage our pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers. Then we’d head into town and start taking Councilmembers while being very careful not to talk about them until they’re safely across the town line.

  37. pdbuttons says:

    when i brush my tooth i close my eyes cuz if i
    opened them i would stare in the mirror at two people and that is when it gets confusing

  38. Wm T Sherman says:

    It should be noted that the demographic category involved will cause the US DOJ, by policy, to take no action.

  39. BT says:

    If the Advisory Council isn’t a government entity, how can their meeting violate Open Meetings laws?

    It depends. One example in the Arkansas paper was that this advisory group secured a $800,000.00 grant to improve the sewer system. On what authority did they do this? Was the council even aware that this group had filled out the application?

    Is any meeting the Mayor attends subject?,/blockquote>

    It depends on whether he is speaking or attending as the Mayor or as a private citizen.

    Even the Mayor knew what he was doing was not within the letter of the law:

    In the meantime, Mr. Nash said he would continue to do his job exactly as he always had.

    “Technically, what I’m doing I guess is illegal,” he said.

    As far as the pitchforks go, there is a process in place for remedying dysfunctional local governments. It’s called elections.

  40. Pablo says:

    The illegality the Mayor refers to is a violation of the ordinance not the open meetings law. He’s talking about the Council, you see. Naughty, naughty.

    You seem to have misread the sewer grant bit. The piece does not support your characterization.

  41. BT says:

    41

    I got the impression GCAC handled the grant proposal because of this:

    GCAC is confronting the city council’s declaration of bankruptcy by bringing in experts to help them create an alternative plan to bankruptcy and loss of city services. GCAC has also taken on the city’s water issues. The distribution of water, the quality of the water and the waste water removal are all below standard because of a water system that is 60% deteriorated. After studying their options, GCAC persuaded city council members to reverse a recent decision and raise the water rates to invest in new infrastructure.

    http://empoprise-bi.blogspot.com/2011/07/more-on-gould-citizens-advisory-council.html

    More on the GCAC can be found here:
    http://citizensfirst.org/about-us/member-groups/gould-citizens-advisory-council

  42. Drumwaster says:

    I’d sure like to organize America to see to it that Barack has plenty of time on his hands to spend with his girls.

    Only on Visitor’s Day at minimum security Club Fed…

    Although I imagine he’ll work out some sort of plea bargain, like Clinton did…

  43. Jeff G. says:

    If the Advisory Council isn’t a government entity, how can their meeting violate Open Meetings laws? Is any meeting the Mayor attends subject? If he sits down with the the Veterans Basket Crocheting Guild, or any other private group, does that require public notice? No.

    Precisely. Which is why the reporter in the piece I linked noted that her interview of the mayor would have been illegal under such an ordinance.

    Tyranny.

  44. BT says:

    Jeff

    It wouldn’t be the first time a reporter got it wrong.

    This is the ordinance:
    http://www.arktimes.com/images/blogimages/2011/07/13/1310568750-gouldordinance.pdf

  45. sdferr says:

    Heh

    . . . causing confusion and discourse among the citizens . . .

    Brillig! It would be hard to make shit like this up and have it believed.

  46. happyfeet says:

    Also no new organizations shall be allowed to exist in the City of Gould without approval from a majority of the City Council.

    that’s from BT’s pdf

    I think it’s pretty clear that Gould’s fascist and anti-American city council is over-reaching a little.

  47. Abe Froman says:

    I’m not sure what edification you think the text of that ordinance provides.

  48. BT says:

    It certainly doesn’t ban the Mayor from speaking to reporters.

    What it poorly attempts to do is stop non-elected entities from conducting city business.

  49. happyfeet says:

    there should be a new organization in charge of keying the shiny union whore-built cadillacs of Gould’s fascist and anti-American city councilmen

    all the way down the side

  50. Jeff G. says:

    Seems to me the suggestion is that groups talking to the Mayor are presumed to be doing city business.

  51. McGehee says:

    What it poorly attempts to do is stop non-elected entities from conducting city business.

    That’ll save the city a lot of money at election time.

  52. BT says:

    In the case of GCAC apparently they are, as they have taken on the project of reconstructing the city’s utilities infrastructure, setting rates and applying for grants.

  53. Ernst Schreiber says:

    In the case of GCAC apparently they are [doing city business], as they have taken on the project of reconstructing the city’s utilities infrastructure, setting rates and applying for grants.

    And yet from that bit you yourself quoted I see:

    GCAC persuaded city council members to reverse a recent decision and raise the water rates to invest in new infrastructure.

    So, who’s doing Gould’s city business again?

  54. BT says:

    Makes one wonder why they would raise rates to invest in new infrastructure if the council had declared bankruptcy.

    In any case, i think there is far more to this story than simply tyrants gone wild.

Comments are closed.