File under self-immolation: Censorship becomes “official” policy at the Speak Out Loud NA troglodyte blog

cen·sor·ship
n.
1. The act, process, or practice of censoring.
2. The office or authority of a Roman censor.
3. Psychology. Prevention of disturbing or painful thoughts or feelings from reaching consciousness except in a disguised form.

Am I the only one in New Albany who finds it ironic that the primal motivation of our city’s “no progress at any price” sect seems to be the immediate, and if necessary, violent suppression of views that differ from their own?

After all, the “little people” in question, those who wake each morning to the fearful specter of a vast governmental conspiracy, are quite certain that they are being deprived of valuable information – but when it is suggested that the information in fact resides in plain sight, or the information in question is provided to them on a platter, their first response is to upbraid and censor the messenger.

Let the record show that at 1:04 am on Monday, June 13, Laura Oates, the self-appointed spokesperson of New Albany’s “little people” made it “crystal clear” that crass and unapologetic censorship is a preferred weapon in the arsenal of the anonymous “concern taxpayers” and “New Albany residents” and “hometown girls” who have agreed that Laura Oates “speaks out” for them.

Think I'm making it up? Then read it here.

And so we see that in mocking opposition to the benefits afforded an free and open society by a concurrently free and open exchange of ideas – which, in the final analysis, is the single most important founding principle of the United States of America – Laura has “officially” asked myself and another frequent poster to her blog to “refrain from utilizing” her “people’s soapbox,” presumably because to her, freedom of speech is far too important to be left to those who understand how to exercise it responsibly.

Rather, in her convoluted view, free speech applies primarily to a solitary veiled body of opinion that must be insulated from examination from dangerous outsiders, those troublemakers who can never understand how comprehensive frustration with the vicissitudes and insignificance of daily life on Earth must somehow lead to an uncontrollable envy, and an accompanying impulse to hide behind a cowardly hood of anonymity while hurling brickbats at anything and everything that extends beyond their grass-blade narrow field of vision.

Yes, I know – it’s “just the Internet,” but it tells us what we need to know about the nature of local reality.

Although Laura actually once declared laughter illegal in her spitwad blogyard, I labor under no such frivolous constraints here, and I’m laughing as I write this piece – “out loud,” in fact -- not because the topic of censorship is any less serious than I’ve suggested in the paragraphs above, but because I can’t believe our good fortune in finally coaxing New Albany’s unreconstructed Luddites into openly embracing a positive, “I’m for it,” position on an issue, and when they at long last do, they vote overwhelmingly in favor of fascistic censorship of opposing viewpoints.

Tsk, tsk. The denizens of “Speak Out Loud NA” are fond of searching under tattered throw rugs and inside unpolished sewer pipes for hidden “agendas,” but with Laura’s open advocacy of censorship, it would appear that her, and their, agenda is obvious: The restoration of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who will squelch Scribner Place, imprison youth soccer parents, deport the Mayor, and force the state of Indiana to rescind property taxes.

Unfortunately for the Brambleberries, Franco is still quite dead.

As dead as the repellent ideals of anyone in this city who screams, anonymously or otherwise, for censorship -- as Laura did today.