EDITORIALS & NOTES

June 2020

We understand that many events in our lives are driven by emotionally charged reactions.  At a time like this, educating ourselves about the facts becomes ever more important so that we are less likely to be swept up by excessive emotionality.  This webpage and editorial seeks to provide meaningful, educational information on this and related topics.

There is no doubt that our police forces and other emergency responders are fundamental to maintaining law, order, and societal safety.  Without these basics, there can be no meaningful freedom because Citizens cannot effectively provide these services as an individual.

News media outlets showcasing protesters calling for abolition of law, order, and safety services offer limited information to visualize what society would look like without, thus precluding meaningful consideration of such an apparently ludicrous proposal.

Protesters and news outlets claim police racism during protests while honoring the names of alleged bias victims, and loop police incidents on TV to dramatize alleged police bias.  But where are the facts and data supporting police racism or bias?

Our group has spent untold hours assembling and referencing statistics for everyone to ingest to draw individual conclusions from information available on our website.

However, you might recall the Harvard economics professor named *Roland G. Fryer Jr. whom in 2016 enraged with police incidents such as the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. for breaking into his own home in Cambridge, Massachusetts took it upon himself to sift through crime data and determined that: "On the most extreme use of force - officer - involved shootings - we find no racial differences in either the raw data or when contextualized factors are taken into account."

You can view and/or download the complete study by clicking on the link that follows.

 Further there is evidence that the aftermath of viral incidences of police deadly force leads to large and statistically significant increases in homicides and total crimes because of that is called the "Ferguson" effect.  This term was coined after the rioting caused by an officer stopping a violent personal attack that triggered officers to fear becoming similar institutional victims for simply carrying out their duties, as actually happened to that Ferguson Officer.  Viral reactions to policing forces officers into risk calculations between proactive policing and career cancellation.  Again, this leads to excess murders and felonies.

Thus, radical responses to police us of deadly force, by protesters, and news media outlets, indirectly cost lives and some might argue that these radicals and related news media outlets repetitively broadcasting such narratives have blood on their hands.

*Mr. Fryer at age 30 was the youngest African American to ever receive tenure at Harvard.

November 2021

The Editorial that The Montgomery News ("TMN") refused to publish because it was critical of TMN and because the editor did not agree with the citizen writer:

"The Montgomery News Misses the Mark on Reporting the October 21st TC Meeting"

The November 2021 issue of The Montgomery News (TMN) published an article titled “Cultures Clash at Township Committee Meeting” penned by Ms. Anna Reinalda regarding the November 21 st Township Committee meeting chaired by Deputy Mayor Marvin Schuldiner.

After reading Ms. Reinalda’s representation of that meeting and after having attended and actively participated in the meeting it is apparent to me that TMN continues to live up to its reputation as a leftist-biased publication. They accomplish this by siding with the authority of the TC instead of challenging its actions, failing to properly contextualize obvious points and by soft pedaling egregious remarks by members of the TC.

Here are examples taken from the above referenced article that demonstrate my assertions:

1. Ms. Reinalda accurately reported my remarks regarding Deputy Mayor Marvin Schuldiner quoting Chairman Mao about “power flowing from the barrel of a gun” and that under no circumstances is it ever appropriate in America for an elected official to quote a communist leader. However, Reinalda goes on to define “Chairman Mao as the Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founding father of the People’s Republic of China.” Reinalda is technically correct, however her choice of the words “founding fathers” and "revolutionary” suggests an equivalency between America’s founding fathers, America’s birth through revolution in 1776 and Mau Zedong. Nothing can be further from the truth. The proper way to define Chairman Mao is: “The greatest mass murder of the 20th century having buried alive over 46,000 scholars and murdered an estimated 65 million of his own Chinese citizens through mass starvation, surpassing body counts of both Stalin and Hitler combined.

By omitting the truth about the reference, Reinalda failed to do her job by communicating the horror of the words emitted by our Deputy Mayer Marvin Schuldiner.

Reinalda soft-pedals egregious TC remarks at the expense of truth.

2. Ms. Reinalda’s reporting that I believe that there is not enough Christian influence in Montgomery Township by “echoing her (Ms. Rogers) call to Christendom” in public schools mischaracterized my point: simply that if we can brief Montgomery Citizens on Diwali that I recommended that the TC provide a similar briefing on Christmas.  Second, I was not echoing anybody because I spoke on this topic first. Lastly, in the context of my remarks Reinalda characterizes them as religious zealotry by using the term “Christendom” when my point was simple and innocuous.

Reinalda mis-contextualize obvious points at the expense of speaker’s reality.

3. Ms. Reinalda accurately reported my remarks regarding the TC’s reticence during the Pledge of Allegiance and my question to the TC regarding when in person public meetings will resume.  Thank you.

4. Ms. Susan Rogers had a number of points to make and in advance requested for more than the 3-minute permitted time. That the TC neither accepted nor rejected her request, effectively dismissing her request, was an important point missed by Ms. Reinalda. Instead, Reinalda

prefaced her reporting on Rogers’ remarks by inventorying Rogers’ speaking durations for the October 7th and October 21st meetings all of which were over the 3-minute time limit allowed by the TC and blaming Rogers for the TC being forced to terminate her calls at those meetings because of her failure to cede the floor.

Thus, Reinalda characterized the TC as the victim yet it is Rogers that was denied her freedom to address her TC and Reinalda should have challenged the TC’s 3 minute policy as an authoritarian tactic to limit the TC’s exposure to citizen participation.

Reinalda sides with the TC at the expense of citizen’s rights of representation.

5. Ms. Reinalda criticized Rogers for lack of clarity regarding her remarks on Christian representation in public schools by reporting that “it is unclear what type of representation Rogers believes is missing from Montgomery schools.” thereby discrediting Rogers. Yet Reinalda could have challenged the TC to hear out Rogers and if there was any misunderstanding of her points, challenged the TC to seek clarification from Rogers.

Reinalda sides with the TC at the expense of citizen’s rights of representation.

For the 18 years that I have lived in town, TMN’s reputation demonstrates favor for democratic government officials, democratic candidates and liberal policies while simultaneously undercutting conservatives and their policies. One can only speculate why this is, however, the insight offered by this editorial might help TMN better understand why so many do not take its reporting seriously, shake our heads at one faux pas or another and enjoy quite a few chuckles when its reporting gets carried away.

Editor