On May 25, George Floyd died while being pinned down by officer Derek
Chauvin of the Minneapolis Police Department. Bystander
video of the incident
was posted on Facebook Live. The video depicts officer Chauvin holding his
knee down against Floyd's neck while Floyd pleads with the officers to
release him from the position. Floyd goes silent several minutes later, and
was
declared dead
at a hospital shortly later.
This story though is not about what happened in Minneapolis. It's about a small town in Mississippi known as Petal.
On May 26,
a post
was made on Twitter saying "Would be nice to get a few in there that understand reasonable force, when it's needed, and don't give the rest of them a bad reputation." Hal Marx, the mayor of Petal commented the following on that post:
"If you are talking about the incident in MN, I didn’t see anything unreasonable. If you can say you can’t breathe, you’re breathing. Most likely that man died of overdose or heart attack. Video doesn’t show his resistance that got him in that position. Police being crucified."
The original poster replied to the Mayor, saying "Once he went unconscious
and remained on his neck, do you feel that was warranted? At that point you
have him restrained without allowing the unnecessary risk of closing the
airway at that point. It’s hard to deny that was a bit excessive especially
at that point."
Mayor Hal Marx replied with the following:
"Once he went unconscious and remained on his neck, do you feel that was warranted? At that point you have him restrained without allowing the unnecessary risk of closing the airway at that point. It’s hard to deny that was a bit excessive especially at that point."
The Mayor has
since deleted
his Twitter account.
But this story isn't about the Mayor's tweets. It's about what happened in the town hall meeting held about them.
On May 28, the Petal Board of Aldermen called a special meeting.
The meeting was livestreamed.
35 minutes into the meeting, the following exchange
occurred during the public comment period:
Public commenter: "If you [Mayor Marx] love the people of Petal like you say you do; if you work for them, then [several voices in the audience saying "step down"] we can move forward as a city."
Mayor: "I don't believe that giving into bullying and mob mentality is what I wanna do, because, well, the voters voted me in until July 1, 2021."
Public commenter: "And now we don't want you."
Mayor: "Well it doesn't work that way, I'm sorry."
The people of Petal in attendance at the special meeting made it very clear
that they were not happy with Mayor Marx anymore. They asked him to resign.
He said "it doesn't work that way."
What's the difference between a representative and a dictator?
A dictatorship is characterized by not having the consent of the people to
govern. The people of Petal don't seem to be consenting to the Mayor's
governance. Yes, as the Mayor said earlier in the meeting, he has been
elected three times to the office, most recently in 2019. It's true, as the
Mayor said, that the people of Petal wanted him to be mayor at that
time.
But they don't now.
The Mayor no longer has the consent of the governed.
We aren't talking about George Flynn. We aren't talking
about racial prejudice. We aren't talking about the Mayor's tweets (although
JMTN does not agree with the content of the Mayor's Twitter comments).
We're talking about the fact that the people of Petal don't want the
Mayor anymore, and the Mayor said "it doesn't work that way."
It doesn't matter if the people's reasons are "wrong", as the Mayor claims throughout the meeting. They don't have to be "right" for the people to decide they don't want the Mayor anymore.
Only in a dictatorship is it true that "it doesn't work that way."
That's Just My Thought.
We have sent this story to Mayor Marx via email for comment. We will update the story with his reply when we receive one.
Here's our sources, so you can decide for yourself:
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