Extremism in the pursuit of sign-free buildings
Barry Goldwater in 1962, two years before reminding the world of Cicero’s advice that “Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice.” (Photo: Marion S. Trikosko)
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Cicero said it, but Barry Goldwater — defending his 1964 presidential candidacy from charges he was a fascist who would bring about nuclear holocaust — popularized it as a handy subtext to the worst excesses of conservatives’ ongoing American insurgency: Watergate, Iran-Contra, Whitewater and the Clinton impeachment, the Swift Boating of John Kerry and the endless assaults on President Barack Obama and his policies.
Cambridge got its own example in October with the successful petition drive against a law saying how corporate branding would be handled atop the city’s buildings. Whether it was purely environmental concerns or dislike of his neighbor, Microsoft, millionaire software company exec Terry Ragon spent an undisclosed amount of money hiring a Boston publicist and Brookline political operative and flying in up to 20 professional signature gatherers to fight the law.
They got their signatures. The “Save Our Skyline” initiative was a success. The City Council rescinded its vote and decided against a special election. Ragon won.
But the testimony of councillors and reported e-mails, letters and telephone calls by signers of the petition revealed how: by misleading the public. By talking about “neon billboards” and “secret meetings” and the threat to local wildlife, all things that give Cantabrigians fever and palpitations. By lying.
“Neon billboards” was the “death panels” of the Cambridge sign law. The latter term polluted debate about Obama’s health care reform law despite being invented and baseless, and the former encapsulates the hypnotizing approach employed by Ragon and Save Our Skyline as deployed at the laws’ more than half-dozen hearings and public comment periods.
The shallowness of opponents’ thinking on the matter was similarly revealed when late in the process they still stood at the lectern facing councillors and professed not to understand why the revised law was needed — a mystifying approach to dissent given how many times its need was explained and accompanied by real and concrete examples of the arbitrary, “wink and a nod” way the current law is applied. Even councillor Craig Kelley used a form of this why-this-why-now approach immediately after the drawn-out explanations of supporters, but at least he applied the rationale of wanting a broader set of reforms; audience members simply acted as though they hadn’t heard anything.
Save Our Skyline and Kelley credited opponents of the revised law — which was, to be fair, pulled together poorly and presented with confounding amateurishness — with being smart and caring. But their mesmerized performances make them seem merely ignorant or gullible.
Or prone to extremism in the defense of their perceived liberty?
In casting a rightfully skeptical eye on councillors’ financial support from developers, Association of Cambridge Neighborhoods leader Mark Jaquith also forgives Ragon’s excesses as an example of what’s good for the gander (presumably the same waterfowl saved from the neon billboards Microsoft planned to install in the drained and defoliated basin of the Charles River).
Ragon was “wealthy, clever and motivated enough to get a piece of legislation, which he found offensive, removed,” Jaquith writes in the Cambridge Chronicle.
Now, Jaquith is a keen watcher of Cambridge politics, the kind any city is lucky to have involved in public life, and that’s what makes his take on this issue as instructive as Ragon’s on how far freedom fighters will go. This is how Jaquith describes what Ragon wrought:
It’s true that the professional signature gatherers were paid by the signature, and did not usually give an accurate description of the zoning in question. However, one object of the drive was to publicize the issue and give the voters a chance to consider the issue and decide for themselves. That would have assured a much more thorough and factual discussion of the provisions of the zoning change.
“Did not usually give an accurate description” is the polite way an opponent of the sign law agrees lies were told by, or to, those whose names brought it down. Since there are only 20 days to gather petition signatures to overturn a law, flying in professionals is regrettable but arguably within bounds. Lying to get names at $2 a pop isn’t.
While the petition may result in a more “factual discussion” of the zoning changes, so far the facts seem to be on the side of the council. The misguided passion, lies and ignorant zeal is owned by the opponents.
Cambridge is filled with rich and passionate people, and Ragon has either raised or lowered the bar for them, depending on how you look at it, on using extreme tactics in pursuit of whatever they see as righteous — just as post-Goldwater conservatives will do whatever they must in defense of their higher goals. Residents such as Jaquith have signaled their approval.
But Goldwater also often fought his fellow Republicans — on abortion rights, on allowing gays in the military and other gay rights, for instance — and would likely be appalled by how his principle has been applied over the years to subvert the U.S. Constitution and smear people for the sake of politics. Whatever you think of his politics, he wasn’t a liar. He’s been extolled as the sort of nut who believed a win based on lies wasn’t worth the victory.
The people of Cambridge should understand that. Most people think they’re nuts and extremists.
But they would do well to at least identify lying as the point where extremism goes too far.
Update: Most allusions to Cicero’s aphorism were changed to “defense” from “pursuit” Dec. 5, bringing them in line with the far more common translation, at the suggestion of reader Robert Winters, as seen in the comments below.
1. The first version on the zoning amendment would, in fact, have allowed big neon billboards. This being what Mr. Ragon began his campaign against.
2. Lyinig in defense of corporate egotism is not OK either, but it is standard operating procedure at the BZA. These building ID signs are clearly prohibited by the law (which is what Councillor Kelley pointed out), but variances are granted by a board which habitually ignores the criteria which, under state law, a petitioner must meet. This nod and wink thing is illegal. The only way it can be challenged is to sue the city within 20 days of a petition. A procedure far too expensive for the residents of Cambridge to undertake every time the law is bent. Point this out to the Council and their eyes glaze over, and they take it as a personal attack. So I can only assume that you approve of lies from the government. That extremism in the defense of capital is no vice.
3. The law under which the challenge was brought is written in such a way that it is virtually impossible to use in a calm and coherent way. It gives only 20 days to collect signatures of 12% of registered voters.
4. Ignorant and gullable? Is that really how you want to describe some who doesn’t want his home to be surrounded on three sides by 6 by 15 foot illuminated advertisements? For the last 50 years there has been a steady reduction in “billboards”, and for good reason. Even Councillor Reeves called a 4 by 6 foot sign a billboard at one of these same meetings while discussing another topic. Is he ignorant and misguided, or merely biased.
5. To equate me with the “save the geese” bird brains is offensive in the extreme. I stand with Ms. von Tscharner and the Charles River Conservancy in not wanting views in and of the Charles River Reservation degraded by crass commercialism. To make the goose connection only demonstrates your lack of attention over the years (ignorance), and lack of an honest analysis of what my position actually is (shallow thinking).
Please print this, as I have shown you the respect of dignifying this column with an answer.
I am disappointed that, in order to make your point, you have apparently seen the need to omit the fact that large numbers of us opposed this zoning amendment for reasons that have nothing to do with neon billboards and everything to do with our desire not to look at advertising all over our skyline. I have to look at the sign on the Marriott (I know, hotels and motels are under different rules) in Kendall Square from my home, and others in East Cambridge have publicly complained about the Sonesta and Genzyme signs visible from their homes. If people need to find buildings, signs at ground level, such as you find already all over Kendall Square, are far more useful than advertising atop tall buildings. As I testified over and over, and I know you heard me say it, I want no signs of any type. Like Councillor Kelley and many of my other fellow Cantabrigians, I want the law actually enforced. Jim Rafferty, who knows a thing or two about zoning, testified repeatedly that there were no hardships backing up variances granted for the signs we already have, and he’s completely correct.
The councillors themselves were not above doing quite a bit of lying during this debate. Terry Ragon and Save Our Skyline never claimed to be a grassroots effort, no matter how many times Councillor Reeves and his buddies said otherwise. There was, however, a grassroots campaign that took advantage of Save Our Skyline’s efforts to get our own message out and our own signatures on the petition.
They lied when they said that the amendment had been modified to take account of objections voiced at public hearings. In fact, it was modified to be even more obnoxious by adding signs above the roofline after Mark specifically asked for assurance that that wouldn’t be allowed. It was modified to concentrate the signs in a neighborhood, my neighborhood, East Cambridge, that is already besieged by the vast majority of the development that makes it possible for Brattle Street, Coolidge Hill and similar neighborhoods to be the lovely places they are. We are the source of the money that keeps residential tax rates the lowest of any municipality around, but we don’t see many of the benefits, just the burdens. The amendment actually did allow internal illumination as originally proposed, then was modified to forbid all illumination, then external illumination was added back, despite repeated public testimony against any illumination.
Finally, neither you nor the councillors have ever been willing to deal with Carol O’Hare’s critique of the waiver provisions, supposedly limited to signs below 20 feet. I have been around long enough to see over and over how the “unintended consequences”, to borrow a phrase from November 22’s discussion of 40 Norris Street and Section 5.28.2 of the zoning ordinance, somehow become reality. The councillors wring their hands and say they just didn’t see it coming and we have to fix this so it won’t happen next time and blah, blah, blah. They count on the fact that most of us aren’t paying any attention and are gullible enough to believe them. Unfortunately, they’re mostly right.
You also missed what might be the most important point of this whole thing. As I testified, we all owe Terry Ragon a thank you for freeing the councillors to say publicly what they really think of us (and, from what I’ve heard, it was even worse privately in the Green Room). They have a really low opinion of us. They are furious that anyone dared call their bluff and push back. They were also smart enough to figure out that they would most likely lose a real vote, so they made sure democracy wouldn’t have a chance to break out in Cambridge.
I respect you immensely. You do a better job of reporting intelligently and honestly on goings-on in Cambridge than anybody else I know of, but this hit piece is unworthy of you. Differences of opinion are good, and, had you confined yourself to that, this comment would have been far different.
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
Barry Goldwater, acceptance speech as Republican candidate for President, 1963
US politician (1909 – 1998)