Break it...by doing the right thing.

If they had answered his questions perhaps he wouldn't have kept asking? Perhaps if the other people (cattle) in the room had spoken up as well, agreed with him, demanded answers also, this would have had a better ending. I blame the board, I blame the other parents and blame the brute (cop) for it going like it did. I do not blame the long talking Dad... who just wanted SOME one to answer his questions. (The board knew they didn't have an acceptable answer so they sicked the cop on him...nice.) VERY telling!
And, the "proper action by the police officer" would have been to NOT BE THERE. This was not a question and answer parent/boe meeting...if there's police present it is then a heavy handed, intimidation tactics, FAKE meeting. And the Board KNOWS this.

there is plenty of positive discussion on the site. My thing on down voting is simple. If you are going to take a point away and then put a comment/response right underneath it-your comment effectively goes down the thread as well. I down vote ad hominem or troll like stuff, not disagreement. sheesh-that's the point of discussing!

to your take on Rand fans. It is not "bellyaching" to point out consistencies in policies and trends in society. It is refreshing to be on a site where people "get" that the US is a much different landscape now than in 1957 when AS came out. and the landscape in 1957 is different from the early 1900s. Vigilance is very important and expressing anger when anger is an appropriate response is also important. There are all kinds of heroes. Some are like Roark who ignore the rest of the world and continue to create without caring what's happening until the day they find they've been deeply wronged. Other heroes, like novelists or poets or journalists who write with a message, connect the dots between events like this one for others to see. There are a number of us on this site. It is productive and useful. It requires high level skills to do it well. Weaving a life philosophy into the fabric of our culture is essential to changing that culture and eradicating the real evils which try to thrive whether you care or not in being productive, raising a healthy family, loving and playing.

Yes, we have "police" at Toastmasters. Every properly organized chapter has a sergeant-at-arms. When you speak, you have a known time limit. The timekeeper has three lights (or cardboard sheets): green, yellow, red. Time, over-time, out-of-time. If you speak when out-of-time, you can count the speech toward your certification, but you are not allowed to win any ribbons at that meeting. Rules matter.

When the school board, or any government body, has a ridiculous and indefensible position it's always acceptable to use force. Look at the examples we have grown accustomed to. Ruby Ridge, Waco, the BLM in Nevada. Because the gentleman expressed his opinion at a meeting (2 elements of the 1st amendment) and the board had no defense, bring in the goons. It has become the American way.

I hear the defense "we are a Nation of laws..." More and more our lawmakers infringe on our rights. The more they do their work, making laws, the more restrictions in the land. It's not so bad when it effect the guy in the next town or down the road. Sooner or later, lawmakers take the rights from all. To those that say "We are a nation of laws, not a nation of men", what do we do if the law is unjust?

If you do not enforce the time limit, some people will turn any public meeting into their own meeting. We do not have the facts here. How many times did they tell him that his time was up? Knowing you have two minutes, you make your point, offer support, summarize, and sit down. I am in Toastmasters and I assure you that two minutes is plenty of time if you have a coherent statement. He might have been upset, clearly, and that is a good reason _not_ to get up and speak.

(I gave Circuitguy a point up. He's back to zero as of now. It is interesting that here, again, points up and down are used not to acknowledge good discussion, but as a bludgeon to punish the non-conforming. That is ironic, considering the topic here.)

the meeting was called specifically because parents were upset about an english assignment. Jodi Piccoult books can be wonderful, but this one was not appropriate for 14 year olds without parental permission in my estimation. There are amazing classics too numerable for a thousand freshman english classes to read that do not go into graphic sexual scenes. As someone pointed out there are laws against giving underage kids pornographic material. Noww I do not want to swear Jodi Piccoult's literary works as porn, it does give some perspective on appropriateness for 14 year old assignment reading.The parent who was arrested wasn't going on and on. He had used his two minutes, then another parent disagreed with him by arguing strawman issues. He simply responded to those arguments. They were: 1. book banning/burning 2. that in past years parents received notification on the book asking for permission to opt in 3. freedom of speech issues. Although upset, he did not raise his voice or stand up and make a scene. It was a small room with not that many people. It became a stand-off between teh police officer and the man. He , an attorney, was shocked that the policeman was taking him outside for violating a 2 minute rule. His daughter was visibly distraught and upset. The school Board sat there and did nothing to calm the situation. It sent a clear message to the room. You get your two minutes and that's it. One more word and you too could be arrested. Utter nonsense

"I gave Circuitguy a point up. He's back to zero as of now. It is interesting that here, again, points up and down are used not to acknowledge good discussion, but as a bludgeon to punish the non-conforming. That is ironic, considering the topic here."

When I came across Rand fans years ago, I thought Rand's message was "don't think for yourself. We have a highly politicized orthodoxy for every public policy issue. We live in a frenzy of outrange and angst at how crappy things are because the world isn't smart enough to adopt our orthodoxy."

Roark exhibited some of this angst about being misunderstood, but without the politics and bellyaching. He put his nose to the grindstone for years getting little respect from the establishment in his industry. He found bits of happiness like when this young man contemplating suicide saw the spirit of owning our own minds and lives in Roark's art, and it got young man out of his depression. And in the end things turned out well for Roark and those who lived for themselves.

It certainly makes the schools look like asses having police standing by. I have no idea why they have police standing by when no other meeting I've ever been involved with have police.

My wild guess is people are turning the meetings into venues for political speeches. The school are a gov't org, so they attract employees and board members who are geared toward mindless bureaucratic rule-following. Instruction-following was an important job skill during the industrial revolution, and it's precisely what we don't need for modern jobs. So you've got yahoos more interested in making a political scene than getting stuff done at a meeting run by mindless rule-followers. This is why I probably won't use the public schools for very long. We're moving our 6 y/o to public school next year, but we're not counting on it lasting long.

I would not have asked the police to remove him, but I don't know what the right thing to do was. How long do we let people carry on. I don't know the context, but I thought it was the school's meeting, not the parents'.

I wonder why the police were there in the first place. I can't get the context from the brief video.

Assuming the school did call the meeting, how long do we have to let some filibuster before we physically kick him out. These people were obviously on a hair trigger b/c he only went on for a few more seconds before they kicked him out. Is there some rule about how long someone should be allowed to carrying on.

If I were on some local board asked to review this, I would be looking for any reason to disallow the police force but I don't see it unless there is some rule for how long people are allowed to carry on outside their turn. This is based on philosophical understanding of force, my experience participating in unpopular speech outside of Madison, and my recent experience having a legal dispute with a school.

Do they have police enforcement at Toastmasters.?
Both of my parents were teachers and I raised two kids. I've been to alot of school board meetings and there certainly weren t any police officers there as a precaution. It's heavy handed for sure. We are seeing more and more videos of school board meetings being tightly controlled. Why?

Wasn't me. And that man should not have been arrested. They were not answering his questions!!

They were at a meeting discussing material their children were responsible for in class. That's a meeting parents own -not the school board. He was not disruptive. He was understandably angry. The board is an arrogant bunch of thugs for standing by and watching this man get arrested

I should have wrapped that in <sarc></sarc> tags.

<sarc>is going to end well</sarc> = is going to be a nationwide, generation-spanning embarrassment.

It's odd they had a police officer present at the meeting. I don't see removing someone who disrupts the meeting a case of initiating force. He can stand outside the school with a sign chanting his message. But he can't do that at someone's meeting. I think they were right to remove him from the meeting by force. It's a fair point that they only asked him to relinquish a few times before getting the cops involved. Maybe they should have a rule like they spend 30 seconds asking someone to relinquish. Otherwise he could filibuster the meeting and there'd be no way to stop him.

Are you serious? First you ask why there was a cop present to begin with and then say he was justifiably removed, for talking...by an armed cop and then you say it wasn't force. The cop was there to be a threatening presence. To intimidate. That alone keeps people silent. Duh. And the first sign of tough questioning they make an example out of a dad and arrest him. The next meeting will have more cops and less questioners. Are you starting to understand yet?