Press Talk: Please tread lightly with civility

County Councilor David Madore often plays this “be civil” card as he smiles while lecturing the public. But in private this character will cut you off at the knees if you don’t fall in line with his view.

Now, the latest example of this call for civility comes from Port of Vancouver Commissioner Nancy Baker.

“The public behavior at the last few meetings has been disturbing and inappropriate to me,” she said at a recent public meeting.

“In the future no personal attack or criticisms of board members or port staff will be tolerated.”

It would have been nice if Baker had given us serfs some examples of our bad behavior, but there were none forthcoming. So we were all left to wonder what exactly is disturbing and inappropriate.

Regardless, one item in her pronouncement was particularly confounding:

“No criticisms of board members or port staff will be tolerated.”

What the …

With all due respect, Commissioner Baker … really?

So what happened?

Some history is probably in order to help explain why things have gotten a little “entertaining” down the port’s way.

Typically not a whole lot of attention is paid to the port. Goods flow in, goods flow out, they spend our tax dollars, we check to see when “America’s Got Talent” is on TV.

That’s life.

But then the port failed to follow my one rule of living peacefully:

Don’t do stupid stuff.

Suddenly the port was the best show in town. We all had to record “America’s Got Talent” and start paying attention to the characters down there.

So what exactly happened?

Where to begin? First they approved the largest oil terminal this side of Saturn. And if that wasn’t bad enough, much of the decision-making was done behind closed doors. For the most part, the public was shut out of being involved in the process.

This stupid stuff didn’t sit well with us common folks. You like Houston? Well that’s what Vancouver is about to look like. If we were searching for a city nickname, we found one:

Oiltown.

So guess what? Lots and lots of residents have headed down to port meetings to let them know how they feel. Most folks didn’t much like the oil terminal. And they didn’t much like the way the port was working the back rooms.

So now Baker apparently has decided the feedback is getting out of hand.

But — again — what exactly is out of hand? What is the difference between incivility and passionate criticism?

Sure, our port friends don’t like hearing it. But guess what? You do stupid stuff, you’re gonna hear about it.

I asked Ken Paulson about all of this. Paulson is the president of the First Amendment Center and former editor of USA Today.

“It’s important to remember that the driving force in adoption of the First Amendment in 1791 was to keep a check on people in power. Freedom of speech and press were seen as the very best ways to monitor government officials and protect democracy,” Paulson said.

Hopefully Baker appreciates this. So let me repeat Paulson’s main point: Free speech exists because it was considered one of the best ways to monitor government officials.

Telling the public to behave or they’ll get muzzled will have a chilling effect on those who want to use their First Amendment right to criticize public officials.

Look, it should be made clear that I’m a big supporter of being civil. Common sense tells us that in a civilized society we should act with respect. But if we are going to err, we need to err on the side of giving residents more leeway, not less. Democracy was set up to be a messy business. And the First Amendment is there to assure that it remains a messy business.

Oh, and one more point, if you will allow me to use my First Amendment right to speak.

The First Amendment isn’t around to protect the speech you want to hear. It’s around to protect the speech you don’t want to hear.

Capice?