No. According Senator Eichelberger, the detractors of SB1 should have had their ability to express their concerns limited to an appropriate time and place and carried out with the appropriate hardware. As you can see from his blog post below, the Senator found it offensive that public school employees would take time during their break, or lunch, or on their way to work, or while on the commode to contact his office. According to the Senator if your working for the state you have no right to address your government. Interesting. However, what if these calls were from teachers during the school day and from a district phone? Is this really "unethical" or "illegal?" The state hired these teachers to advocate and do right by their students. It would seem to me that advocating for children during the hours of school is perfectly legal, maybe even mandatory.
However, what about the Senator? What was he doing during work hours at the expense of the taxpayers using taxpayer facilities? He was advocating breaking the law by passing an unconstitutional bill that would take resources from children, teachers, and schools. Seems a little unethical too. Hypocritical?
"I got some very interesting calls and emails today from public school folks. It is worth noting that many of the calls and emails came from school employees while on taxpayers time and using taxpayer funded equipment. Certainly, any citizen has the right to address their elected officials, but using public resources to advance their personal agenda is inappropriate, unethical and perhaps illegal. Many of the people who pay their salaries and bought that equipment do not share their views." Senator John Eichelberger
If you have time during "appropriate, ethical and legal" times maybe you can let the Senator know how much you appreciate his advocacy for the corporate education reformers and his disdain for public school employees. http://senatoreichelberger.com/contact/
I post on my own time, as do most people that work, am non partisan and post about issues that concern me, such as ALEC and it's so-called model laws. I am within my rights. I would think with the investigations about ALEC and the legislators who brought those model laws into actual law there would be more to worry about than suppressing what is within the rights of any public employee, unless somehow a legislator hopes by using fear tactics they can stop the tide of knowledge and keep hidden what should have never been hidden? The Constitution and Bill of Rights, I believe they are living documents and I will continue to do what is in my power to remind anyone we do not live in a dictatorship and we do have rights and we must utilize the right to vote and make sure those voting machines are not rigged. I am not concerned with anyone voting illegally, anyone with intelligence does know this is rarer that winning the BIG lottery or being hit by lightening. Voter ID laws are to attempt to keep minorities, the poor and students from voting. I am concerned about the very real potential for hacking voting machines. Right now everyone should be very concerned about ALEC and the destruction of our country by ALEC and the legislators who support them that are voting into actual law these destructive model laws written by ALEC. This should have everyone who is a true patriot up in arms. Furthermore using fear to keep people silent is just a first step, now they want our children to be uneducated or LESSOR educated. These same people, ALEC and the legislators are making sure their children do not suffer and those people can more than afford to send their children to the best schools, all at taxpayers expense. Is not ALEC pretending to be a non profit while they profit and are not the legislators being provided a top 1 percent income? This is disgusting, the insults to public employees who help the public as they should while legislators line their pockets and attempt to make the middle class appear greedy. These model laws that become law benefit no-one but ALEC, the corporations who support them and the legislators who belong to ALEC. It is no co-incidence in the last 10 years or so our economy has gotten severely worse. Alec has had more power in that time. I did read in the Times the IRS is to look into ALEC and the news is picking up on ALEC and the legislators who belong to them. If our country is to survive and thrive this evil must be stopped, those laws reversed that were written by ALEC and legislation put into place to make sure this never happens again. Our trust has been broken and no American should ever have to question who their legislator is working for, the public or ALEC.
ReplyDeleteOh and let us not forget those legislative aides and legislators who post on twitter and facebook and on blogs about "the other side of the aisle" This is simply propaganda, perhaps they could use their time more wisely and some of these legislative aide jobs could be eliminated. We do have more legislative aides than any other state. This would save money. As far as legislators perhaps they could work for who voted them into office and quit the full time campaigning for themselves, their party and for ALEC. We NEED education for without a good education our children will not have the tools to grow our country. Keeping people ignorant is a tool evil people use to keep people from having the knowledge to recognize and protest society's ills.
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