On Anger and Free Speech
Learn more about your own community — Write a petition.
Three weeks ago I ran an ad in my local newspaper. Back cover, full-page, full-color, with a very large and commanding photograph at the top. A photograph easily recognizable from across a room. When the morning newspapers began arriving at the homes, cafes, and businesses in my county, some local citizens lost their collective minds. The ad offended them — it violated their personal beliefs. So they fired up their keyboards and friend lists and got to work.
Collectively, this group of citizens used their social media megaphones to amplify their messages of dislike for the ad. They used the same newspaper’s ink, in subsequent editions, to loudly and proudly voice their dissent. Opinions flew from their keyboards to their online accounts, and together their words motivated many other like-minded people to join their cause.
False information soon appeared online about my spouse, a long-time local school teacher. Friends and acquaintances who had commented favorably of the ad, or those who voiced their support of it, were shamed or verbally attacked simply for their own positions. Detractors suggested everyone they knew should boycott a small, minority-owned Jackson restaurant I had invested in two years ago, simply because the diner was associated with me. The group was angry, and they let everyone know.
Did I like what this group had to say? Clearly, not. But their speech, their words, their ads, their collective voices, are among a group of protections this nation was founded on, and I honored their right to voice and print their opinions against the ad — even if they refused to honor those same rights for me.
For three weeks I let them speak their hate. I listened, and I weighed my options.
Instead of a hastily-drafted, rapid-fire, emotional retort, one which would have drawn me down to their level and certainly caused an escalating cycle of — shall I say — endearing praise and adoration between us, I chose to remain on the high road.
On February 5, 2021, I ran the following apology in our local paper:
Dear citizens of Amador County,
On January 15, 2021, I paid to run an ad in this newspaper.
If you were personally upset by its content, or by the requested calls-for-action from our elected officials and leaders, or were in any way offended by the group name I chose to use at the bottom, I offer to each of you my sincere apologies. I am sorry.
Every Amador County citizen is equally honorable, and to have chosen a group name that denoted unanimous support of the ad from every citizen was an unintended mistake on my behalf.
I also offer my apologies to my spouse, my family, my friends and acquaintances. My words were not your words. None of you deserved to be insulted or verbally attacked simply for being connected to me.
To my business partners, as an investor in your business, my words were never intended to speak for you or for the businesses you own. Your livelihoods should not have been threatened. To you I apologize as well.
Respectfully, Chris Floyd
For readers who don’t live in Amador County, and who have no idea what this is about — please, read on.
From its tree-studded rolling hills, to its towering snow covered mountains, Amador County is God’s country, a stone’s throw from both majestic Lake Tahoe and the state capitol of Sacramento. Located in the Sierra Nevada foothills, this rural, mainly conservative-voting California county of 38,000 people is known equally well for its 1849 gold rush-era mining history, as much as for its quaint historic towns, scenic vistas and incredible wineries.
On January 6, 2021, many Amador County citizens, and millions of people around the world, watched as a violent attack against our nation’s Capitol played out on live television like a poorly-scripted reality TV show — complete with pirate flags, buffalo horns, and live ammunition.
I was one of the millions watching from home, glued to the scenes broadcast on every channel. Our nation’s democracy was at risk.
I had been in Washington, D.C. on two separate occasions some years ago, both times as a chaperone on middle school field trips with my children. We had walked the hallowed grounds of our United States Capitol with Ami Bera, one of our state’s elected members of the House of Representatives, and together we sat in the same front-row seats of the House chambers that were now being overrun by violent insurrectionists. We had stood and taken photos from the upper balconies, where terrified members of Congress, their staff and family members, now hid motionless in fear for their lives.
Our nation’s Capitol, the seat of our representative democracy, was being attacked. Not by militant foreign terrorists, as it had been in 2001, but instead by its own citizens. Everyday people, just like you and me. People who truly believed the Presidential election had been “rigged” and a Trump victory stolen. People who believed the lies and propaganda.
Like wild prey, the Vice-President of the United States and members of Congress were being hunted under the dome of the rotunda, and in the offices and corridors of the Capitol building. Weapons were raised, and a gallows erected, as the world watched in horror and disgust.
Blood was shed. Lives were taken. A country mourned.
In the aftermath, the FBI released names of arrested insurrectionists. Photos of our country’s doctors, Olympic heroes, bus drivers, firefighters, CEO’s, people from all walks of life, began splashing across our screens. Sadly, among those arrested, were elected government officials, military members, and law enforcement officers from multiple states, all who had sworn an oath to uphold the rule of law and the Constitution of this nation. I had sworn that same oath long ago, and for more than 30 years had proudly and honorably served my citizens with integrity.
As the names of the insurrectionists were spoken, dozens of cities and towns around the country were thrust into the national spotlight for the criminal actions of their now-infamous citizens.
Alarmed residents began writing to their local newspapers, calling on their elected officials and leaders to reaffirm their oaths of office. Opinions and concerns were voiced, posted online, printed in newspapers, and shared on airwaves across the country, many calling for immediate action from their own local and national leaders to step up and ensure their public’s trust.
I gave some thought to what I would say to the public in these times of national crisis, if I were one of their elected officials. Rather than use a single voice, my own, to encourage our local officials and leaders to step up and speak out against the lies and violence — I chose to draft a public purpose petition. I got straight to the point: Amador County Officials Must Condemn the Insurrection. I published the petition online to Change.org, then ran a copy in the local newspaper, asking concerned citizens to support its cause.
Within hours, hundreds of Amador County citizens had signed.
The petition requested each of our Amador County elected officials and leaders, from school board and city council, to Sheriff and law enforcement leaders, to ensure their public’s trust by denouncing the violent, deadly insurrection against our United States.
To me, that request seemed like fairly low-hanging fruit. After all, it had been a violent and deadly insurrection against our own nation’s government.
I provided facts.
On January 6, 2021, a violent insurrection occurred at the United States Capitol; Blood was shed. People died.
By bi-partisan vote, President Donald Trump had been impeached for his role in inciting the insurrectionists.
Some insurgents arrested had been elected officials, military members, and law enforcement officers.
To ensure the public’s continued trust, the petitioners desired certain assurances from their local elected officials and leaders:
1) Publicly acknowledge Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the legitimate winners of the 2020 election, an election that was fair and honest, not “rigged”, as each of our nation’s courts had repeatedly affirmed.
2) Publicly state, in their personal capacities, they will not support, encourage, aid or abet persons or groups trying to violently overturn the 2020 election.
3) Publicly state, in their official capacities, they will not support, encourage, aid or abet persons or groups trying to violently overturn the 2020 election, and further state, as an official, they will report and/or investigate, as appropriate, any persons or groups they may have knowledge of who use, threaten to use, or incite violence of any type in Amador County, California.
4) Hold a moment of silence at the start of their next official public meeting, to pay their respects to officer Brian Sicknick who gave his life defending our nation’s democracy as a U.S. Capitol police officer on January 6, 2021.
The petition then made one last request of our officials and leaders:
If any elected official or leader petitioned was unwilling to denounce or condemn the insurrection, or was unwilling to support the additional actions requested, they should offer the public they serve their immediate resignation.
Respectfully signed,
— The honorable Citizens of Amador County
What angered some of our citizens most, apparently, were not the petition’s calls-for-action. It was the simple name at the bottom of the page — “The honorable Citizens of Amador County.”
Unlike personal letters, petitions are signed collectively — not by every person that views or reads them — but instead, only by the group of citizens who actually sign them. I had chosen that distinguishing group name for my petition, one which had implied, incorrectly, seemingly unanimous support for the petition’s statements from every citizen of Amador County. Some obviously did not agree. Sadly, I had overstepped.
The name the group of angry citizens really wanted to see at the bottom of that petition was my name. The name of a person they could sink their teeth into for creating and running that blasphemous petition in the first place. The person who dared demand actions to support unity and public trust from their government officials — actions some of my fellow Amador County citizens clearly disagreed with.
They were wrong, however. I had not hidden behind a pseudonym. I had provided my name — to the newspaper — as required by law.
The names of individuals and organizations who purchase political ads are not protected from disclosure. In fact, their names are required. These names are publicly available, and the Ledger Dispatch newspaper was free to release mine to anyone who so inquired. I had neither requested, nor expected, privacy or confidentiality from the newspaper. All the citizens had to do was ask — and they did.
I’ve been around a while. In fact, I’m old enough to have actually owned my own VCR. In my time, I’ve chosen to sign, or elected not to sign, my fair share of petitions. Some petitions I wholeheartedly agreed with and was happy to endorse. Others, not so much. Did I get angry or upset if a petition presented to me did not represent my personal views? Of course not. Regardless of how I felt about each petition presented, the petitioners had a right to their opinions, and the right to ask me to sign it. I had, of course, every right to respectfully decline, as well.
Paid signature gatherers often thrust clipboards with petitions upon us all, commonly outside of grocery stores or shopping malls where, prior to Covid-19, large groups of people once gathered. A petition represents the collective group of voices of its signers, those people who choose to speak together in unison for a cause equally supported. In the United States, petitioning the government is a legally protected right. Many countries do not provide that same right to their citizens.
Petitions are the people’s right to demand actions from their leaders. Actions they desire their government officials take, or actions they request their officials refrain from taking. Where is that right found? I’m glad you asked.
“We the People…”. The first three words of the Preamble to our United States Constitution. Small words with very big meaning. We are a self-governing people, and as President Abraham Lincoln aptly noted in his Gettysburg address, a “…government of the people, by the people, for the people…”.
In 1791, our government conferred a long list of unalienable rights to its citizens. Rights that established great freedoms: The right to due process of law. The right of freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. The right to a trial by jury. The right to keep and bear arms. These rights, and many others, were drafted by our nation’s forefathers and bound in handwritten sets of parchment more than 200 years ago.
The various rights I noted are found in the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution. At the top of our Bill of Rights, however, are the words of the First Amendment. James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights, and later the fourth President of our United States, during the first United States Congress, penned these simple, powerful words:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble; …”
There is one additional clause in the First Amendment — one many citizens often forget:
The right, “… to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Petitioning the government, at every level, is a right legally protected by the First Amendment, the same First Amendment that equally protects our freedoms of religion, speech, the press, and assembly.
There is a very important reason petitions are a right of the people.
From Constitution.org:
“One of the risks of representative democracy is that elected officials may favor the narrow partisan interests of their most powerful supporters, or choose to advance their own personal interests instead of viewing themselves as faithful agents of their constituents. A robust right to petition is designed to minimize such risks. By being forced to acknowledge and respond to petitions from ordinary persons, officials become better informed and must openly defend their positions, enabling voters to pass a more informed judgment.” - Constitution.org
In its simplest terms, petitions have great power.
The power to for ordinary persons to collectively encourage the government to take action. The power to compel officials to openly defend their personal positions — either for, or against — the certain actions a petition calls for. From their responses, voters may then establish a more informed judgement of their elected leaders in office.
With little doubt, I am confident tens of thousands of elected officials and leaders throughout this nation would agree with the statements and intentions of the petition I authored, and would proudly affirm my petition’s requests to their own communities if given the chance. Sadly, I also recognize some officials and leaders, perhaps those concerned about personal or political backlash from some angry citizens, would not agree to speak up.
Regardless, every elected official and leader has the responsibility to lead, to work collectively for the common good of all people, putting their personal biases and opinions aside. That is what leadership actually is. That is why they were elected.
From local school board or city council races, to President of the United States, every election calls on voters to make choices. There must be a winner and a loser, and the candidates we each select don’t always end up victorious. When the ballot counting is over, the candidates look their opponents in the eyes, shake hands, and offer their congratulations to the victor. Together they move on as Americans, not as enemies. Peaceful transfers of power occur.
Until this historic and infamous year, of course, where claims of election fraud plastered headlines, news channels, and Twitter feeds nationwide.
When tangible evidence of election malfeasance exists, candidates have the full power and authority of our nation’s entire judicial system to help them adjudicate legitimate claims. Courts hear the evidence and take sworn testimony. End the end, verdicts are issued and the legal challenges stop. Victors have much work ahead for the citizens they represent, and the losers much time ahead to heal. Encouraging violence and destruction are never an acceptable course of action.
Regardless of who you are, the color of your skin, what groups you support, or which political party you represent, violence of any type, by any person, group, or political party, is illegal and never an effective way to demand change.
Every citizen should take a moment now and ask themselves, “Do I like the way our American government runs? Do I feel our laws are wrong, unjust, or inequitable? Do I want to see changes, particularly from my own local government?” If you answered yes to any of these questions, there are proper methods you can choose to peacefully call upon your leaders without fear of repercussion from those in power.
Pray, at your church, in unity with your congregation. Use your voice to call for action from those who listen. Write your newspapers, and use the power of the free press and social media to post your thoughts and opinions for others to see and read. Assemble, peaceably, with others to protest your chosen cause.
Or write a petition.
That’s my opinion, I’m sure you have your own. Feel free to comment.
Look for more articles on this topic and others in the weeks ahead, or check the online scorecard to view real-time statistics of Amador County officials who were petitioned and how they chose to respond.
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Unless otherwise noted herein, the content of this article is my personal opinion. It is not the opinion of others, including my family, my friends, my business associates, or others.
