On this week’s Disaffected, we interviewed my friend Bill Oetjen. He’s a retired schoolteacher facing civil fines from our woke city government for speaking out against the trans medical abuse of children and the destruction of women’s private spaces.
Oh, the city claims they’re merely ticketing Bill for “property defacement” because he put stickers on lamp posts. What did those stickers say?
”No one was born into the wrong body”
”Lifelong medical dependency is not kindness”
Never mind that thousands of other people put up stickers on Burlington lamp posts every day and are never, ever cited for “property defacement.” Never mind that some of those stickers explicitly call for the death of women, feminists, and “TERFs”. That’s just good community, see, but what Bill says is “hate speech.”
Bill has been given $1,200 in fines, and he’s not going to pay them. But he needs help with legal costs to fight this viewpoint discrimination. Burlington is actively hostile to the Constitution and American principles of free speech. We have very little financial or moral support from anyone locally.
Disaffected kicked in $500. Can you spare a few bucks?
If you want to help, we have a fundraiser for Bill here. It’s at GiveSendGo.
Here’s a cut-and-paste link to the fundraiser:
https://www.givesendgo.com/GB78J
If you want to know more before you consider donating, here’s our show’s coverage of the problem. Please do click through to that Twitter link—it takes you right to the relevant segment of our show, and it plays right on Twitter at that link.
https://twitter.com/DisaffectedPod/status/1717203712467226979
Just donated! Will donate more next week when able.
I donated for the privilege of providing a response. I suspect he should pay the fine and pick another battle. I could be wrong, but I'm not uninformed. I am a lawyer, but I am not authorized to practice law in Vermont, and I am not giving legal advice. I am expressing a general personal opinion.
There is no place in the United States that doesn't engage in viewpoint discrimination vis a vis selective enforcement of laws. That's been true for at least 35 years. Some people have to follow the rules, and others do not. If there is a violation of an ordinance for defacing public property, I don't think there is much of a defense to say that the ordinance is not enforced against other violators. Of course there are the free speech implications, but I hope his counsel is being pragmatic about how this will play out. I hope I'm wrong, but I suspect I am not. If you are soliciting donations, I trust you will keep us informed about how this plays out, whether for better or worse. I'll be pleased to say my prediction was wrong. Nothing would make me happier.