As a colonial historian, I am writing to ask Auburn's city council members and mayor to seriously consider how un-American it really is to adopt unreasonable and arbitrary protocols that would place further restrictions on public speech at City Hall.

It is not hard to prove my first point, that “free speech is the American way,” since this is plainly written in the First Amendment.

My second point, that we need to cut a little slack for protesters who disrupt nice, orderly government proceedings, will take a little more work to assert, but here goes.

If I had to make a few concise statements about our local government and the “American way,” I would say that:

€ Submission to authority has never been a “given” in our American political heritage.

€ Those in power only hold their power at the good pleasure of the people (us).

€ If government does not serve its proper ends, it is not only our right, but our duty, to oppose it.

€ Our constant vigilance is always necessary to guard against corruption in high places.

€Public disorder signifies injustices that exist in the system itself, not just the “unruliness” of a few protesters.

Some solid references are Bernard Bailyn's “Ideological Origins of the American Revolution,” beginning and end of Ch. 3, and Ch. 6, Part 4; Gordon S. Wood's “Radicalism of the American Revolution,” Ch. 2, beginning of Part 9; Pauline Maier's “From Resistance to Revolution,” Ch. 2, Part 1.

Lisa M. Backus

Auburn