This was in response to yet another citizen on Facebook who suggested that I ‘hate’ Whitehall and that if I don’t like it here I should simply leave, those two awful and corrosive things I’ve heard before. Here is their claim:

“…your clearly biased blog does not constitute accurate or unbiased reporting. You don’t get to write a blog that poorly cites, if any, sources. You most certainly shouldn’t go screeching on all the Whitehall pages about how your fantastically delusional blog is fact. Dixon, if you hate Whitehall so much, leave. It’s okay to have differing opinions, but I have noticed that all your opinions share a certain theme, hating Whitehall. If you hate Whitehall, leave Mr. Dixon.”

I wanted to put my response on the blog because I keep answering this awfulness in various places. This condenses it in one place for all to see. This then was my response to that offal:

“My ‘bias’ has to do with those most associated with lack of ethics and morality in public office. You’ll note that my blog RARELY mentions City Attorney Bivens, Councilpersons Lori Elmore, Joanna Heck, among others. My ‘bias’ has to do with those doing the wrong and damage, in OUR names, to our government’s processes and the resultant damage to our community. Mayor Maggard is at the top of that list for a reason (See word cloud on my blog, below).

As for my ‘hating’ Whitehall, I will answer that charge once again:
a) characterizing my 10-year fight to right what is wrong in our government at City Hall as ‘hating’ Whitehall is waaaayy off the mark and is intended simply to marginalize my efforts in order to get people to hate me without deeper investigation on their own and cast me aside, that which only helps those and others with vested interests. See: ‘Strawman‘: “an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent’s real argument”.
b) I don’t ‘hate’ my hometown, what I happen to hate is corruption among city officials which is wrong to the very soul of our community. Who else anywhere in this city has shown the devotion to my hometown in fighting tooth and nail to right the wrongs with the powerful goliath at City Hall at the cost of their good name and reputation being dragged through the mud and the time and energy and money I’ve spent over ten years fighting FOR my city, like I have?!! I haven’t seen YOU at meetings, I haven’t seen YOU on street corners protesting, I haven’t seen YOU writing letters to the editor, I haven’t seen YOU running for local office even once, let alone TWICE! What I would charge YOU with is not hate, which is an emotion one extends outward but, rather something more insidious and destructive: apathy and carelessness towards Whitehall, that which does NOTHING, says NOTHING, accomplishes NOTHING for the betterment or otherwise of our fair city. That atrocious carelessness that sits idly by while wrong is being done. That cares so little for Whitehall that they would sit by while wrong is done to that city. If there is wrong being done by citizens it is in truth the self-centered inactivity by people like yourself.
As well (as I have said TOO MANY TIMES BEFORE), the notion that an American should go ANYWHERE else when they find wrong and stand fast and commit to fighting against it is so VERY un-American, I’m always astounded when it leaves a fellow American’s lips.
By YOUR standard, Lincoln should have simply went to Europe and ignored the enslavement of human beings.
By YOUR standard, Suffragettes should have simply stayed home cooking dinner or went to more progressive countries instead of fighting to right the wrong of women not being allowed their right to vote.
By YOUR standard, Dr. Martin Luther King should have simply taken Coretta and left for France where racism wasn’t so much a problem and let Jim Crow and lynching stand as the accepted norm.
Such a directive is as awful and as un-American as it gets.”