Just one banjo player's opinion here, for what it might be worth...
I think the 1st Amendment is working just fine in Lakewood.
In fact, I think it's probably working overtime, and time and a half on weekends.
I think that people just tend to forget sometimes that freedom needs to be accompanied with responsibility.
Look, I learned my lesson about putting things in writing the hard way, back when I was a new school teacher. I sent a memo (being a special education teacher) to other teachers offering my help if any of the special needs students (that we shared) in their classrooms needed assistance.
Oh boy....Some teachers interpreted the memo as being an affront to their skills. Others thought that I needed to mind my own business and stay out of their classrooms! There were, in short, so many interpretations of my well-intended memo that it was scary.
I learned then and I am reminded again today that stuff put in writing lacks that third dimension of depth, immediate interaction capability, and insight. Written stuff can be misunderstood so much easier than the spoken word...and it can get out of hand so quickly...
I really believe that all of the above becomes much more exacerbated when personal interchanges transpire in a public forum. Whatever happened to a good old telephone call? Whatever happened to private communication? Why do we have to witness sparring matches online, and more to the point, why do we seem to WANT to witness that sort of thing?
Does all of this just tap into the psychology of people wanting to watch sporting matches, or even those horrible spectacles in the ring in ancient times?
People SAY that they cherish their free speech and right to privacy, and yet, when we freely decide to post in a public forum, guess what? We are no longer private people.
We instead become micro-celebrities on a mini-stage for the world to either cheer or jeer on at its pleasure.
We all learned as children that the reason we have two ears and one mouth is that we should listen twice as hard before we speak. We learned too that the pen was mightier than the sword. How all of that good advice needs to apply to the internet should be self-evident.
I too was not pleased to read all of that stuff during my Easter weekend. It's not that I want to lay blame with anyone, but you just have to wonder whether these sorts of discussions would not have been better handled directly between the individuals involved, rather than in a public forum?
Perhaps there is a lesson for all of us here, or not?
Now, where was my detention pad?
Back to the banjo...