When Discussion Ends, Democracy Ends

The genius of our particular model of democracy is that it has successfully encouraged a never-ending public discussion. That is the lifeblood of our system.

As computer technology has made anonymity easier and more socially acceptable, it has also made it possible for a small group to appear to be a large one, and to make erroneous and uncivil statements cost-free.  To be sure, free speech is a vital part of our heritage.  Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in Whitney v. California (1927) that the remedy in the case of false speech or fallacies, unless “the incidence of evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion… the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”  He also wrote that “it is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.”  I believe that Justice Brandeis was and is right.

The LoHud Peekskill Forum was briefly a useful public forum but it was destroyed by those few who chose to make participation intolerable for anyone with whom they disagreed, and by LoHud’s failure to reasonably monitor the site.  Anonymous posters had turned what had been a marketplace of ideas into the OK Corral.

LoHud (and every other website) has every right to enforce its terms of service.  It’s a commercial enterprise relying on high reader traffic to sell advertising.  Nothing in the First Amendment says you get to say your piece on someone else’s dime. I don’t know why LoHud managed their forums the way they did.  What I do know is that they recognized something wasn’t working and went looking for a solution.  On Thursday, 27 November 2011, an Editor’s Letter appeared in the Journal News titled “Changes on LoHud.com end anonymous comments.”  The writer, Ed Forbes, explained that “just like many of our readers, we’ve grown tired of abuse, personal attacks, name-calling and worse.”  They decided to outsource the Forums to Facebook in hope that “commenters will be less likely to engage in personal attacks and abuse” and that “particularly aggressive abusers won’t be able to build multiple accounts” because everyone will be required to post under their real names.

What happened at LoHud is starting to happen on the Patch.  Comments on some recent articles have been way out of line: name-calling, unsupported accusations, distortions of fact. One recent example is the claim made in several posts about the firehouse project that the mayor and many of the council members ran against eminent domain but now embrace it when it suits their purposes.  This simply is not so.

The Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Kelo v. New London  http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-108.ZS.html reinterpreted “public use” in the last clause of the Fifth Amendment  http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fifth_amendment expanding governments’ power to take private property from one owner and give it to another for the purpose of “economic development.”  That is what the Democrats ran against in 2007.  The law they later passed on this issue http://www.ecode360.com/PE0161 simply takes up the Court’s invitation in Kelo to local authorities to limit their power to use eminent domain under this new interpretation of the Constitution.  In the case of the firehouse project, the city has made it known that, if necessary, they will use eminent domain in the way this constitutional power has been defined since 1789. In the meantime New York State, in response to the terrible injustices wrought in Port Chester through use of eminent domain under the old rules, has reformed its laws on eminent domain to provide for advance notice and fair valuation of properties.  No one can, and no one will, be “thrown into the street.”

Whatever you think about local government, politics, or policies, please make your point without demonizing others or flinging baseless accusations at people with whom you disagree.  Such tactics won’t bolster your credibility, and it may just make an end of this virtual “town square” where we all can discuss how best to realize our community’s great potential.  I have to believe that adults can regulate their own behavior.