Ethics Quiz: No Applause, No Applause, No Applause!

Hmmmm…

In Tacoma Park, one of the most woke and wonderful communities in already insufferably progressive Maryland, Mayor Talisha Searcy ordered the crowd at a recent city council meeting not to applaud the various statements made by citizens as the council sought comments on a study regarding the city’s rent stabilization laws.

“I just want to make sure I’m learning about how to facilitate civility within a community,” the mayor said as she ordered the audience to “refrain from cheering, booing, signs, all that good stuff” as well as applauding. Many in the crowd were not pleased. When a spectator shouted that prohibiting clapping is “undemocratic,” the mayor delivered the stunning theory that “clapping for some and not all is not democratic” and that “we have to allow for people to feel safe to say what they feel.”

Okay, she’s an idiot, an ethics dunce, an expired hippie, and the most obnoxious species of progressive squish. These are the kinds of people,who demand that nobody at a meeting ever condemn even the most brain-dead idea because it might hurt the feelings of the dim bulb who offered it. Searcy is the kind of person who loves the passive-aggressive “I hear you” that usually means, “but I’m going to forget you ever said anything so stupid.”

There is no defending her claim that “clapping for some and not all” is undemocratic. However, I am interested in whether it is ever ethical to ban positive reactions, politely expressed.

2 thoughts on “Ethics Quiz: No Applause, No Applause, No Applause!

  1. When one of my groups used Robert’s Rules of Order (more or less), I noticed that meetings ran long because people would give speeches agreeing with what someone else just said. I tried printing out little cards saying “ditto” or “anti-ditto” that people could hold up, but ultimately settled on the simpler approach having people snap their fingers to indicate agreement. (If someone disagreed, they could give a speech, and everyone who agreed with them could snap.) It was much easier to keep meetings on track from then on.

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