Guidelines and talking points for speaking at City Council meetings

The problems we have in America are not going to be fixed with less speech, the solution is in more speech.  But, not just any speech.  In an age of unprecedented brainwashing and disinformation from television, movies, radio, newspapers, and social media, and when we cannot find an online comment section free of AI chatbots, it’s extremely important that those who do choose to speak in public, choose their words wisely, to convince and persuade.

To begin, the Constitution was written by men who realized that without virtue, there can be no liberty.  Virtue means we have to police our own behaviors and words.  And, today, we see the consequences of people not policing their own behaviors and words.  Because as self discipline decreases, big government and the police state increases.  https://www.bing.com/search?q=virtue+liberty+quotes&gs_lcrp=EgRlZGdlKgkIABBFGDsY-QcyCQgAEEUYOxj5BzIGCAEQABhAMgYIAhBFGDkyBggDEAAYQDIGCAQQABhAMgYIBRAAGEAyBggGEAAYQDIGCAcQRRg8MgYICBBFGDzSAQgyMTI3ajBqN6gCCLACAQ&FORM=ANAB01&PC=LCTS

We know that profanity, racial slurs, and pornography are not allowed by the First Amendment, so, these forms of speech must be avoided by those seeking to restore America.

As much as possible, avoiding personal attacks is wise.  Attacking a person’s appearance, or any deformity they have that they can’t control does not really advance any argument, or persuade or convince anyone of anything, and so should be avoided.  Sound speech that cannot be condemned should be the goal.

There is a useful tool, WordCounter (https://wordcounter.net) which will tell you approximately how long it will take you to read a speech.  By putting your speech on this tool, which is free, you can make sure your speech does not go longer than the time given by city councils.  Typically the time given is three minutes, though I’ve seen some councils give two minutes and others give five.  The most generous was Dickinson, ND, which gave 15 minutes, until they decided they didn’t like what was being said and nearly completely shut down all public comment.

Here is a sample 3 minute speech on the First Amendment.

“Hello Mayor, Council, public employees, and citizens,

I’d like to speak about the First Amendment tonight.  It was so important that the Founders put it at the very beginning of all the amendments, as they realized without free speech, none of the other amendments matter that much.  Their design was that ideas could be discussed in public, and since the truth will be able to emerge against all criticism, the truth will win out.  But, for that to happen, the government and other citizens cannot be permitted to silence ideas that they don’t like.

There are certain ideas the First Amendment wasn’t designed by the Founders to protect. We know the Founders said the Constitution was only for a moral people, so that means they didn’t design it to protect profanity, racial slurs, and pornography, all of which are either immoral, degenerate, or foolish, and in some cases they are all three.  Yet, so deceived are millions today that these three forms of speech that were nearly nonexistent in early America, are commonly used today, while ideas that are truthful and that America’s Founders would have said, are silenced as “hate speech,” a term that didn’t even exist just 150 years ago.

Since the internet came along in around 1991, there has been a massive shift in public opinion, with millions now believing that ideas they don’t like should be silenced.  This is a violation of the spirit of the First Amendment, which says that it is designed to protect ideas we don’t like to hear, with the exception of the three forms of speech mentioned above, along with slander, libel, and a few other forms of speech.

As we look at history, we see many good people who were put to death by mobs for disagreeing with popular opinions.  We see Socrates was put to death by a jury of 500 in Athens, for saying things people didn’t like, even though Socrates was telling the truth.  We see Jesus put to death for disagreeing with religious rulers, who lied about him and got him criticized.  We should learn from these examples, and avoid silencing those we disagree with for the crime of having opinions we don’t like.

Voters don’t elect politicians to have the politicians tell speakers what they can and cannot say, unless the speech violates tenets of the First Amendment, and another category not yet mentioned is it calls for violence against others.  It is the duty of the listener to have self-control, because if listeners can’t listen to ideas they don’t like without exploding with verbal interruptions or violence, then they don’t need to be at city council meetings, and indeed, audience members who interrupt speakers or who engage in violence should be removed by the police.

An attack on the free speech rights of one American is an attack on the free speech rights of all Americans, so I hope you will do your duty and defend the rights of every American to speak, and avoid viewpoint discrimination, where you try to silence those you disagree with and you encourage those to speak who you agree with.

Thank you and have a good evening,”

According to Word Counter, that speech takes two minutes and 56 seconds to speak.

What follows are ideas and quotes on the First Amendment that can be used in a speech.

1) Truth sounds like hate to those who hate truth

2) “No man  is hated more than he who tells the truth” Plato

3) “No right was deemed by the fathers of the government more sacred than the right of speech. It was in their eyes, as in the eyes of all thoughtful men, the great moral renovator of society and government.”

Frederick Douglass

4) “An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.”  Hugo Black, Supreme Court Justice

5) “The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.”  Anthony Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice

6) “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”

William Brennan, Supreme Court Justice

7) “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”

Benjamin Franklin, Silence DoGood

8) The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty. — William O. Douglas

9) Our country as a whole, no less than the Hastings College of Law, values tolerance, cooperation, learning, and the amicable resolution of conflicts. But we seek to achieve those goals through “[a] confident pluralism that conduces to civil peace and advances democratic consensus-building,” not by abridging First Amendment rights.

10) “Truth is the ultimate end of the whole universe.”-Thomas Aquinas (13th Century)

11) “How brave a thing is freedom of speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state of Hellas in greatness.” – Herodotus (5th Century BC)

12) “This is slavery, not to speak one’s thought.” – Euripides, The Phoenician Women (5th Century BC)

13) “It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.” – Tacitus, Histories (2nd Century)

14) “No right was deemed by the fathers of the Government more sacred than the right of speech. It was in their eyes, as in the eyes of all thoughtful men, the great moral renovator of society and government. …Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.” – Frederick Douglass, Plea for Free Speech in Boston (1880)

15) “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money.” – Frederick Douglass, Plea for Free Speech in Boston (1880)

16) “I do not believe that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they must never express; that they must go through life with a pretence as a shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will only keep still; and that above all is a God who despises one who honestly expresses what he believes. For my part, I believe men will be nearer honest in business, in politics, grander in art — in everything that is good and grand and beautiful, if they are taught from the cradle to the coffin to tell their honest opinion.” – Robert G. Ingersoll, The Great Infidels (1881)

17) “Herein lies the value of free speech. It makes concealment difficult, and, in the long run, impossible. One heretic, if he is right, is as good as a host. He is bound to win in the long run. It is thus no wonder that foes of the enlightenment always begin their proceedings by trying to deny free speech to their opponents. It is dangerous to them and they know it. So they have at it by accusing these opponents of all sorts of grave crimes and misdemeanors, most of them clearly absurd – in other words, by calling them names and trying to scare them.” – H.L. Mencken (1926)

18) “Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban… At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.” – George Orwell (1945)

19) “If large numbers of people believe in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it. But if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them. …The notion that certain opinions cannot safely be allowed a hearing is growing …even those who declare themselves to be in favour of freedom of opinion generally drop their claim when it is their own adversaries who are being prosecuted.” – George Orwell (1945)

20) “Evolution of democracy is not possible if we are not prepared to hear the other side.” – Mahatma Ghandi (1947)

21) “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” – John F. Kennedy (1962)

22) “Every man — in the development of his own personality — has the right to form his own beliefs and opinions. Hence, suppression of belief, opinion and expression is an affront to the dignity of man, a negation of man’s essential nature.” – Thomas Emerson,
Toward a General Theory of the First Amendment (1963)

23) “Free speech is not speech you agree with, uttered by someone you admire. It’s speech that you find stupid, selfish, dangerous, uninformed or threatening, spoken and sponsored by someone you despise, fear or ridicule. Free speech is unpopular, contentious and sometimes ugly. It reflects a tolerance for differences. If everyone agreed on all things, we wouldn’t need it.” – Robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post (6 April 2014).

24)  “The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were based on the premise that government was the great threat to freedom, and the purpose of a constitution was to limit the power of government.”

—Alfred S. Regnery

25)  “In questions of power, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

—Thomas Jefferson 

26) At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. The freedom to speak one’s mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty – and thus a good unto itself – but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole. We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions.

Violence and slander are the tools of the man who cannot convince others of the rightness of his beliefs.

what is popular is not always right, what is right is not always popular.

Also, here are 69 videos with talking points you may find useful,

Videos created by Sons of God (@SonsofGod) – Gab Social and Sons of God.

Note, there were some deceived speakers and infiltrators on some videos who used racial slurs.  I strongly denounced this behavior and do not stand for it.  The First Amendment does not protect profanity, racial slurs, or pornography.