March 22, 2021 at 10:23 a.m.
Of snowflakes and censorship
Of snowflakes and censorship
Make no mistake, though, we are always happy when our wintry concoction gives way to long sunny days and summer pastimes.
Through the years, another type of snow has come to call the Northwoods home. It is an invasive species known as "the snowflake." It is not to be confused with our winter snow. It is not even a relative.
Snowflakes may be beautiful or not, but they never go away. They stay around all the year. Typically you can spot them because they live in liberal safe zones. They are terrified of everything and everyone. They are also offended by everything and everyone. Snowflakes must have their way, and those who disagree with them are evil people to be punished.
In snowflake land, free speech is but a tool with which to torture their fragile souls.
In the real world, there hasn't been much snow lately in Oneida County, but last week there were snowflakes aplenty at the Oneida County courthouse. They weren't in the majority, but they had come to defend a snowflake protection zone on the county board, otherwise known as the county code of conduct for supervisors.
Here's how it works. When a supervisor offends a snowflake, the snowflake can run to Daddy, or Mommy, or to, excuse us, Gender Free Parent, otherwise know as the county board chairperson, and file a complaint.
One can just imagine a snowflake's complaint: "Daddy Hintz, so-and-so called me a leftie whacko! That's not civil discourse! I am traumatized!"
Hintz: "Do you need therapy?"
Snowflake: "No, I need revenge!"
Hintz: "Isn't that uncivil behavior?"
Snowflake: "No, it's social justice!"
Hintz: "What do we do then?"
Snowflake: "We have to cancel so-and-so, kick so-and-so off the county board forever, and never mind how much so-and-so is liked by constituents. Also, we have to pay me reparations."
At that point, a little tribunal is set up, with the snowflake victim getting to choose one supervisor to represent the snowflake, and the accused getting one representative, and the third member being the board chairperson, which of course means the chairperson alone renders judgment.
Presumably, it's in favor of the snowflake, or else the board chairperson is the target of the next complaint, because obviously racism, or some latent anti-snowflake bias, drove the wrong decision.
Recently, some have talked about just getting rid of this code of conduct - and in fact the county board voted this week to move in that very direction - and that's why the snowflakes were all aflutter, their angst on full display.
Sometimes they almost sounded rational. Why in the world would anybody oppose a code of conduct that merely calls on supervisors to be civil to other supervisors, staff, and the public? they asked.
Yeah, it all sounds good, until you consider the realities. Let's consider them.
You see, the thing about snowflakes and liberals in general is that they are perpetually offended. And it's a political strategy camouflaged by crocodile tears as much as it is real offense.
That's not to say some snowflakes aren't truly offended by everything, mostly millennials growing up in the safe harbor of elite economic privilege, but that's not the case with most liberals.
For them, it's a political weapon, and their defense of Oneida County's code of conduct last week is a great case in point.
As some supervisors pointed out, the language in the code of conduct is very vague. For instance, supervisors must "refrain from abusive conduct; personal charges or verbal attacks upon the character or motives of other county board supervisors, boards, commissions and committees, the staff or public."
Now it should go without saying elected officials should be thick-skinned enough to take verbal abuse and attack, but just what constitutes abusive conduct and verbal attacks upon another's character and motives?
For instance, is it abusive or character assassination to call out a fellow supervisor for being deceptive or underhanded, even if that is the case. Can one not call another supervisor a hypocrite? Can that language not be used, even if the supervisor making the accusation believes it or in fact it is true?
The problem is, any code of conduct that sets restrictions on speech automatically presumes that someone will be the arbiter of that speech, the Great Leader who decides what is allowed and what is not, and such arbiters can, if they choose, ban credible accusations as uncivil and prohibited speech.
That's why the First Amendment is so important, and that's why the county's code of conduct is really unconstitutional - it is censorship disguised as civility.
As George Carlin once warned us, "When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jack-boots. It will be Nike sneakers and Smiley shirts ..."
We don't think Bob Mott and Alan VanRaalte, the two principal defenders of the code of conduct this week, were wearing Nike sneakers and Smiley shirts, but their Mr. Rogers personas are closer to that than to jack-booted Nazis.
Let's dig a little deeper to see just exactly where this defense of the code of conduct is coming from, and where it's coming from is a liberal-left political agenda, and the desire to shut down anything that stands in the way of that agenda.
For instance, we don't believe that it is any coincidence that this robust defense of the code of conduct comes so soon after Tim Reardon of the Two Sisters Lake Property Owners Association accused Mr. Holewinski of violating said code of conduct at two zoning meetings - "how unprofessionally Scott Holewinski addressed Bob Thome, myself, Brian Desmond and his fellow committee members who spoke out against him," to use Reardon's words.
The thing is, Mr. Reardon, part of a little cabal that worked in private with supervisor Bob Thome and the DNR to rewrite a portion of the zoning ordinance with the zoning committee in the dark, may truly believe Mr. Holewinski acted unprofessionally, but we covered both meetings, listened again to the recordings of both meetings, and found nothing of the sort.
What we did find was tough questions about that group's work. This is about as tough as it got: "They're (Thome and his group) not happy, so now they want to rewrite the ordinance. Bob (Thome) has the right to ask them to participate, but I don't think our staff should be going out and having a meeting with a bunch of people making decisions on the ordinance without coming to the committee."
And: "Bob could bring that to us, he could say that the rules have changed, and I wouldn't mind putting that on the agenda. But we found out there are changes in the rules only when they drop an ordinance on us."
That's about as tough as it got. Far from being unprofessional, Mr. Holewinski was offering a blunt, straightforward assessment of the situation in both meetings, whether Mr. Reardon was offended or not.
What is really going on is that, in Mr. Reardon's view of the code of conduct, his group's work in private should not even be questioned, and to do so is unethical and abusive. That's liberal censorship rearing its ugly head again, under the guise of a lack of professionalism and civility.
It's also interesting Mr. Mott would not only keep the code of conduct but revise it to allow citizens to complain that they were treated unfairly.
In the last several years, too, when Mr. Hintz was doggedly pursuing inquiries into the operation of the Oneida Vilas Transit Commission, and in particular into the activities of then transit commission chairman Erv Teichmiller, some said Mr. Hintz was "harassing" Mr. Teichmiller and was violating the county code of conduct.
The end game here is crystal clear. In raising these allegations, people who claim that supervisors are violating the code of conduct merely by doing their job do not really expect their complaints to result in removal or censure of a supervisor. Far from it. It does not even mean an actual complaint will be filed.
Rather, what they hope to do is instill an atmosphere of fear. They hope the constant threats of filing ethical complaints will have a chilling effect on supervisors and keep them from asking pertinent and hard questions or investigating questionable activities.
They hope to intimidate the political opposition into surrender using the happyspank of civility.
The truth is, if we were to apply the standards that Mr. Mott and Mr. VanRaalte want to apply, we believe it is those two supervisors who are the ones most guilty of violating it.
After all, Mr. Mott has expressed his disdain for open meetings laws, which we find offensive. By disagreeing with us, he is obviously not respecting us, and so he should be removed from office. Also, his lack of response to our open records request should be looked at as a potential violation of the code of conduct because, though he claims he never got it, it was never returned to us. An investigation of whether he deliberately ignored the request is appropriate.
Years ago, when the county flirted with buying the Petco building, Petco was organizing tours for county board supervisors but did not want any press in the building. Some supervisors, such as Jack Sorensen, criticized the closed nature of the tours, saying it was an overt attempt to break the open meetings law.
At that meeting, as we reported then, Mr. Mott still urged the county to organize tours so as to avoid a quorum of any committee so the press could be excluded. Now that's what we call an overt attempt to break the open meetings law, and, as such, we believe it was a direct violation of the code of conduct, which directs all supervisors to comply with the laws and which specifically mentions open government laws.
This past year, too, Mr. VanRaalte violated the code of conduct when, as acting chairman of the forestry committee, he denied Bob Rynders any chance of due process and respect, allowing a vote to go forward to ban Mr. Rynders from ever working again on the county forest.
Mr. VanRaalte made no attempt to notify Mr. Rynders of his impending excommunication, no attempt to investigate the claims of the forestry department, and no attempt to delay any vote so Mr. Rynders could defend himself.
Talk about disrespecting the public. We think Mr. Rynders has a valid case that Mr. VanRaalte violated the code of conduct.
Of course, the real trial of the conduct of these and all other supervisors - so long as they don't break state ethics law, or other criminal statutes - should come at the ballot box. The above examples show how easily the politics of things can get out of hand once we go down the slippery slope of requiring civility and politically correct speech and conduct.
Bottom line, the board is right to get rid of the code of conduct. It is not abandoning ethics in doing so. Rather it is preserving free speech and open government.
This is about getting rid of one more partisan political tool of manipulation. A few snowflakes may end up getting offended, but they are already offended all the time anyway.
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