Jamie Allard: Restriction of speech is red flag of tyranny

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GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
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By JAMIE ALLARD

Freedom of speech: Is there any right more paramount to a free society? Without freedom of speech, there is no freedom of thought. And without freedom of thought, there is no wisdom. And without wisdom, a government will crumble. For to govern with wisdom, you must set the ideas free and the good ones will rise to the top. Just as truth will always find the light of day, so too will the good ideas rise above the scrutiny of public discourse. The restriction of speech is a red flag of tyranny.

“Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.” – Benjamin Franklin  

If a bad idea cannot be challenged, nor a good idea tested, then we are left with a vacuum filled by power hungry politicians, who espouse their own agendas and would silence those who dare to disagree. Leaders who resort to censorship are threatened by free speech, because the power of the people would shut down their self-interests and politically biased decisions.  

On several occasions, and lately becoming more the norm, I have been censored in public meetings. I have had my microphone muted, I have been ignored, deemed “out of order,” when it was within my right to call a point of order, and told to stop talking.

As an elected representative, when they silence me, they silence you. The question is why? What are they so afraid of? Are my words really so scary? Does listening to my point of view pose such a threat? If they can’t hear what I have to say, they certainly don’t care what you have to say.  

My colleagues on the Anchorage Assembly have been allowed to ask questions, interrupt, imply motive, make comments out of debate, debate testifiers during public comment periods, and generally not been held to the same standards and rules of decorum as I have been held.

Now, I am not suggesting we throw rules to the wind and let chaos control an Assembly meeting. I am suggesting that silencing someone when it is their turn to speak because you do not like what they have to say is just plain wrong. Less than the glaringly obvious political bias, what concerns me most is this the naked censorship. We may not agree on how to govern this city, but we should agree on the fundamental principles which we have pledged an oath to uphold.  

The line between a free society and the Gulag is as narrow as the stroke of a pen. For one act of censorship requires another and another until all speech is regulated to conform to an ideology. Free speech has fueled every great advancement the human race has ever achieved. But censorship is the slippery slope to all tyrannies perpetuated on people since time immemorial. We must do better. Do I like to sit and endure the name calling and accusations that sometimes come from the public? Of course not. But I will defend to the death their right to say it.

If we cannot preserve the fundamental freedoms of this nation, we have failed in our duty as public servants.  

Jamie Allard is an Anchorage Assembly member representing Chugiak and Eagle River.

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40 COMMENTS

  1. Jamie: Thank you from hundreds of citizens for your courage in the face of this tyranny. Few would have the backbone to put up with what you have.

  2. Suggest using US Constitution. No one is above another. Take down the dais. Give them collapsing tables. Reject daising.

  3. I don’t disagree, but we’re way past that point. People like you are being silenced. The public who attend are silenced.

    Those who object are “phobic” or “it’s”of some sort or another and promptly vilified.

    Clearly the voters don’t care since they keep electing the same Bolsheviks who are ruining Anchorage.

    With this in mind, what do you propose? Proclamations are great. Plans are better.

      • The first article, freedom of political speech happens in a place we purchased and paid for to keep us out of the public square in January isn’t a garden party with girlish tea time manners while we inform our public servants of our will. This is the only reason we have freedom of (political) speech. Prior to the US Constitution with two hundred years from Jamestown to the US Constitution we had maxims of law. One of them is “A belligerent man has his rights”. Horrors. Those against our freedom of informative speech informing those we pay to do our will ought to move to China.

      • The loudest and rudest, in who’s opinion? Yours?
        .
        I have seen plenty of comments on MRAK from you that clearly indicate you support censoring the speech of people on the other side of the political aisle from you. The mob hijacked the assembly meeting was a phrase you have used in the past, if I remember correctly.
        .
        A person providing testimony at an Assembly meeting has three minutes to say their piece. However, LaFrance and the rest of the statists on the Assembly will decide, part way through the testimony, that it’s not relevant. They will use fancy terms like dilatory to justify their belief.
        .
        However, I do not know how they can tell what is relevant in a person’s testimony before it is given. Yet… people are told to step aside, and be quiet. Others are physically removed from the chambers, solely because they want to have their full three minutes.
        .
        But, you see that as rude. Too bad. Bummer. Sorry about that, but just because you do not agree with the position of the person providing testimony does not mean their words or actions are automatically rude.
        .
        LaFrance gets extremely annoyed when the plans of the marxist nine are delayed. Must be why they like the word dilatory so much. Technical difficulties seem to shut off microphones only when someone is disagreeing with LaFrance and her cronies. Weird how they work just fine when people are supporting her pet causes.
        .
        Finally, whether you like it of not, rude and loud people have the right to say what is on their mind as well.

        • Rude and loud people do indeed have just as much right to speak as anyone else. Its divisive and counter productive. Its immature and it very much weakens whatever argument the loud and rude are trying to make. And what, eating a Subway sandwich is somehow free speech? I guess so, but what a stupid way to make a point. Civility and cooperation are cornerstones of a decent community.

          I have never condoned limiting anyone’s free speech.

  4. Require and remind elected public servants they physically look up to we the people not down from a dais we have kindly but in error provided to our fellow Anchoragites. If Roberts Rules has been elevated above the US Constitution by the Anchirage Assembly and now has actually supplanted the US Constitution a correction is required.

  5. The free speech of public servants must also be reduced to three minutes soliloquies by elected servants on the principle of equal treatment. They must now be reduced to three (3) minutes per meeting. No more fullsome extemporaneous speaking by servants. Also absent from the agenda is time allocated for free speech among attendees. We must clap, speak out either in support or against items. We are invited but not to speak. This has become a dilaterious taking from Anchorage. The business of communication among ourselves, political speech, is the exact and only purpose of the publicly funded assembly (meetings). We would like this polical speech to resume. Executive action is our elected Mayor’s job with our undelegated oversight. If the charter says something else it is out of compliance with the guaranteed republic and our national Constitution. Assembly members should think about what else they might like to do personally with their lives like the rest of us.

  6. Where is the ACLU ? Just as I thought they cherry pick the libs concerns but not the American rights concerns. If we keep going this way the US as we know it is over. Then it is open season on what’s right or leagal.

    • The American Communist Lawyers’ Union was formed so that communists could get representation in the Courts. Back when we were a sane Country, open communists could not be members of the Bar and for most public jobs and offices you had to do quaint stuff like swear a loyalty oath to the US. So, they assembled “progressive” another word for communist but not open ones, lawyers into the ACLU and provided representation for open communists and other traitors.

  7. “–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”. When our government stands at odds with its purpose, it is time for change.

  10. I call my reps every day, as well as others, sometimes I’m polite, sometimes not. The idea is to encourage good behavior, and discourage bad. Everyone tells me I’m wasting my time, I tell them they’re irresponsible. Remain silent, become irrelevant.

  12. Jamie, I can only assume you filed an amicus brief against Sen. Lora Reinbold’s contention that she is allowed to block constituents from her political Facebook page–good on you. But I might disagree a little, there are limits to free speech, as recognized by SCOTUS (e.g., the proverbial shouting “fire” in a crowded theater, making threats or intimidating). Why should the Anchorage Assembly be allowed to dictate the subject of conversation at all? Shouldn’t we just open them up to 3-minutes of public testimony on anything the public/WE THE PEOPLE want to say? That would be true liberty. Who needs order and serious discussion, we need to stop the tyranny of trying to hold productive and informative discussions when THE PEOPLE should just be allowed to call the Assembly communists or Nazis or unicorns or whatever THE PEOPLE want–it is THE PEOPLE’S Assembly meeting after all.

  13. The treatment of Ms. Price at the last meeting was also appalling.
    ‘https://mustreadalaska.com/speak-only-when-spoken-to-kids-youth-advisory-commission-is-takeover-target-for-anchorage-assembly/

  14. Jamie Allard is the only member of the assembly who blocks their constituents and talks over anyone she doesn’t agree with. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

    • Ms Allard would do well to learn to be civil. That’s all. Be an equal to other members of the Assembly. Be respectful of time and process. Stop yelling and bitching. Be productive rather than divisive. This is elementary advice.

      • The process of murmering gently, “halt” when the public is excluded? Is that what you desire? “halt”. How gentle and decorousness is NOT the process. Never was.

      • If I may be so bold, as to correct your typo:

        Ms Constant would do well to learn to be civil. That’s all. Be an equal to other members of the Assembly. Be respectful of time and process. Stop yelling and bitching. Be productive rather than divisive. This is elementary advice.

    • I have never seen her do this talking over. She responds to the perpe traitor who disallows full, equal participation for presentation of the will of Allard’s neighborhoods while exaggerating the views of nearly empty downtown.

  15. How can any Assembly member who chooses to restrict his or her freedom of speech by not debating or voting against against the “Gay Pride” resolution which
    .
    “… implores Anchorage residents to participate in a number of controversial events that promote the LGBTQ lifestyle, including occasions for children (and) highlights “Pride-events” listed on the website of Identity Alaska, a radical LGBTQ activist group that has, in the past, organized Drag Queen performances at the Loussac Library for young children.”*
    .
    … complain with any credibility about restriction of speech?
    .
    Maybe YouTube clips of Allard hosting, reveling in controversial events that promote LGBTQ lifestyle haven’t been posted yet?
    .
    We doubt it. More likely this is yet another in a long line of sad, sorry example of our Ruling Class’s rules for thee and not for me doctrine.
    .
    Just seems sadder, sorrier when so-called conservatives do it.
    .

    • Dear younger constitutents: not EVERYTHING is about coupling. We older more experienced do not rejoice in your myriad of follies. KEEP YOUR COUPLING efforts, activities to yourself in this garden party known as Anchorage. Thanks. Your extreme attention to private coupling issues will not be allowed to drive the city agenda. HAVE SOME GARDEN PARTY MANNERS and realistic expectations.

  16. You elected it Anchorage.

    Now sit down.

    Shut up.

    And suck it up.

    Of course you might change things were you to vote for change but with today’s “judiciary” will you be allowed to vote?

  17. “it was within my right to call a point of order”
    Jamie, you don’t even know what a point of order is, despite the Chairwoman explaining it to you several times each meeting. You are clearly in over your head and you think you can overcome that by being loud and obnoxious.

  18. Jamie, I want to thank you for your STEADFASTNESS against this mob rule of “our”(?) Assembly members. I can’t believe the rudeness against one who is trying to speak and shutting you down everytime you attempt to speak out against their mob rule over the meeting..

  19. I don’t for a second think Jamie has done any thing but speak for her constituents, of which I am proud to be one. The other members cut her off, even though she follows protocol. Years ago, I attended an assembly meeting when some yo-yo thought it a good idea to tax us for our septic systems and private wells. About 400 people showed up to protest it, and it was quickly tabled. Myself and at least 5000 people showed up to protest shutting down restaurants during Covid, while letting grocery, big box, and stink weed stores continue to operate. They found every excuse to stop us from testifying, then passed the ordinance anyway. While a person is pouring out their heart testifying, most without any public speaking experience ,these disrespectful idiots are heads down, playing video games or texting. Jamie, you’re right. When what we have to say is disregarded, it is not freedom of speech. Now the kangaroo court that has been created is completely the creation of the assembly. I hope they enjoy it. I will not go to that goat-rope, but will vote to decrease their hold on our city in a heartbeat. For my grandchildren; I could care less otherwise.

  20. Whenever a sports official makes too many bad calls favoring one team, it becomes evident that they either are not up to the task, or the fix is in. The nine on our council appear to be either not up to the task, or the fix is in.
    We have had recall efforts due to perceived incompetence. It appears that the nine have enough party ticket voter support to weather any further recall efforts.
    We may not be able to prove they’re corrupt, but in our hearts we strongly suspect that to be true. Strong public employee union and public official support appears to make them invulnerable to any unbiased investigations.
    Soon as the public perceives that all legal recourse is exhausted, they will become more vocal and demonstrative. For the moment some of the public have become loud, out of frustration. It will get worse as the nine have to resort to even harsher gambits to stay in power.
    There will be a breaking point, more soon er than later. In the meanwhile, lots of businesses, small and big, are moving to the valley. The nine will eventually run short of financial incentives, often referred to as bribe money.
    My contribution is that for almost three years I have not bought gas in Anchorage, where I live, and all my large purchases have been in Wasilla, Palmer, and through Amazon prime.

  21. Yall make me laugh trying to defend this abysmal farce of a representative… Allard represents herself and her puppet masters not anchorage residents. Her appalling tactics and views get her admonished simple as that. If she tried to do her job and work with others following decorum she wouldn’t be ‘censored’. She is an awful example of the fall of the so called republican party

  22. Ms Allard as well as everyone on the Assembly agrees to Roberts Rule of Order when they are seated on the Assembly and take their oath. Ms Allard’s lack of civility and out of turn speaking on the Assembly is well documented.

    • Frank, you are forever and always disingenuous. If you had ever paid ANY attention, or attended, any municipal assembly meetings, you would witness the undeniable, one-sided and clearly biased suppression of Jaime Allard’s voice there, while any of the Marxist Eight/Nine will routinely violate those rules of order themselves. As usual and as always with radical leftists, they accuse others of exactly that of which they are guilty, and operate according to the principle of “Rules for thee but not for me”. It is beyond disgusting, and beyond hypocritical.

  23. The State of Washington has Reeds Rules of Procedure. Most US states observe Masons Rules of Procedure. The Congress has Jeffersons Rules of Procedure marking their federal responsibilities in service to the United States of America. We did not agree to remain a territory but swore to uphold our perfect national union. What’s with pretending to be a private corporation Anchorage? Maybe that’s secretly who you are board members receiving funds quietly, privately. We haven’t agreed to that to my knowledge. Correct me please if I’m wrong.

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