Bad Behavior

These days you can’t pick up a newspaper, listen to the radio, watch television, surf the internet or update your facebook page without seeing people engaged in outrageous behavior in public, particularly in town hall meetings.

Now, I can understand that passions run deep, especially with the issues of the day, but really, is disrupting meetings, being loud and obnoxious, preventing others from speaking and invoking comparisons to long-dead dictators an effective way to get your message across?

I would argue strongly, NO! It makes you, your message, and the poor chump standing next to you look stupid. It makes you and your noise the message, not your position on the issue.

As advocates for this nation’s most important resource, our children, we need to be above reproach in the methods in which we conduct ourselves. As passionate as we can be, we must maintain an emotional impartiality when we speak and act in the advocacy for the issues.

Let me give you two quick pieces of advice to remember always:

1. When in doubt of how you are behaving, ask yourself; what would my mother say if she saw me acting like this?

2. Don’t make extreme comparisons. You aren’t as good as Rosa Parks and your opponents aren’t as bad as Hitler. Not even close. DON’T DO IT!

This article also appeared in the MI PTA Bulletin Legislative Article-August 2009