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Pataskala Town Hall<\/p>\nSmall Town \u00a0– America<\/p>\n
Pataskala Town Hall<\/p>\n
My wife hated to go to Kroger\u2019s (our local supermarket) with me.\u00a0 I was a school teacher, coach, and administrator in the local high school for forty years.\u00a0 When I first began, I made a choice to live where I taught.\u00a0 It was a conscious decision:\u00a0 to be a part of the community more than just the 7:00 am to 3:00 pm \u201cteaching shift.\u201d<\/p>\n
So trips to Kroger\u2019s were often more than picking up bread and coffee beans.\u00a0 Somewhere in the store, there always lurked a parent, or an old student, or a fellow teacher.\u00a0 The five-minute \u201cgrab the eggs and get home\u201d would become a forty-five minute parent conference; from how \u201cmy kid\u2019s\u201d grades were to why he got suspended.\u00a0I considered it part of the job, and the fact that I hadn\u2019t had enough coffee to think, or had just got off the mower, really didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
It happened at Kroger\u2019s, at the local restaurants, even in the restroom at the local bar. \u00a0I was a teacher in a small town, and I expected that I was \u201con duty\u201d whenever necessary.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t always positive, parents who were angry at school were still angry in the bread aisle.\u00a0 But it was part of the job, and a choice I made.<\/p>\n
So I guess I don\u2019t feel too bad that Stephen Miller got yelled at by the bartender at the Sushi place, or Scott Pruitt was lectured by a Mom at a restaurant, or Sarah Sanders was refused service at the Red Hen.\u00a0 They have chosen a public life, they make their living \u201cat the public trough;\u201d and they have acted in a manner that raises public ire.\u00a0 There is no way to openly discuss their actions with them, no \u201cparent-teacher conference.\u201d\u00a0 They are public employees who are seemingly without restriction in their thoughts and actions.\u00a0 It\u2019s no wonder that \u201cthe public\u201d feels it\u2019s acceptable to approach them and speak their minds.<\/p>\n
Many feel that they have gone beyond the bounds of decency. Perhaps they are even trying to provoke public reaction. When Homeland Security Secretary Neilsen and Stephen Miller chose Mexican restaurants in the middle of the \u201cchild separation\u201d crisis:\u00a0they were either being provocative or oblivious.<\/p>\n
It is the new nature of our current political divide.\u00a0 While in the past there was always a common standard of \u00a0behavior (and a common set of facts) today we are divided beyond the \u201cold rules.\u201d\u00a0 We see \u201cthe other side\u201d as not just wrong, but inhumane and uncaring.\u00a0 And it\u2019s not just the border crisis; from the President\u2019s new selection to the Supreme Court, to the EPA\u2019s withdrawal of regulations protecting the environment, to the Consumer Protection Bureau moving to protect banks, our nation seems like \u00a0Orwell’s\u00a01984<\/em>, with the Ministry of Peace waging war and the Ministry of Truth telling lies.<\/p>\n We are a nation founded on the First Amendment.\u00a0 We, the public, have the right to speak our minds, particularly when it comes to political views.\u00a0 There are many who feel that some in our government have stepped beyond the norms and mores that have governed our collective actions:\u00a0 they seem unreachable and uncaring.\u00a0 So the public is approaching those leaders whenever it\u2019s possible.\u00a0 If that\u2019s in a restaurant or outside of a public hall, then welcome to our small town: America.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n