What do you think about this Tweet from Ward 5 City Council Council candidate Bill Humphrey?
The “can’t we all just get along, these elections are tearing us apart” people seem fairly naive about the existential struggle we are currently in like it or not. We can’t all just get along because we don’t all agree and we have opposing interests. You can’t hand wave that away
— Bill Humphrey 🌳 (@BillHumphreyMA) October 26, 2019
Existential struggle — about Newton over-development??
Of all the tweets from this candidates’ twitter, I feel like this is somehow one of the more uncontroversial.
Wow! That is a startling statement for someone who’s campaigning to replace John Rice, probably the best guy in the city for getting people who don’t agree on things to work happily together. John’s biggest virtue was that he gets along with virtually everybody including those who disagree with him on various issues.
It’s a national commentary, settle down
Um, “settle down”?
And Bill why doesn’t the same thing apply locally?
Why attack Bill Humphrey on some innocuous tweet??? Doesn’t he have some specific issues you can discuss instead of making this a personal attack? I thought you guys led by Jerry Reilly were going to stop personal attacks going forward. What happened?
Because I haven’t seen any “existential” level struggles here yet so the tweet doesn’t refer to local things
With a week to go…which candidates do more listening vs talking?
Can’t speak for anyone else but that’s my basic logic filter for Nov 5th.
I think he’s right.
@Arthur Jackson – responding to the substance of a public tweet by a candidate for public office a week before an election hardly qualifies as a personal attack.
@bill Humphrey-i assumed the tweet referred to local issues since you’re in the midst of a campaign. Since you were referring to national events I would definitely dial back my reaction quite a bit … though I still wouldn’t agree with it.
Huh.
You could knock me over with a feather right now.
Really.
When I first read that tweet yesterday, I thought it was an interesting comment about what’s happening in Newton at this moment, and a good followup to Claudia Henderson’s thoughtful post from yesterday.
I didn’t post it here as an “attack.” I thought it would jump start an interesting conversation one week before our municipal election.
And I agreed with Bill’s tweet and with JenAK. It may just be that we can’t “wave away opposing interests.”
But, boy, did Bill’s comment here throw me for a loop:
Settle down?
Is that how City Councilor Bill Humphrey will respond to constituents?
And this is not about partisan politics.
Bill would probably vote the way I would want my Ward 5 City Councilor 100% of the time.
In other words, legislatively, Bill and I have no “opposing interests.”
But I can’t just “wave away” being told to “settle down.”
Greg, the “settle down” was about the 2 over the top comment reactions, one of which Jerry already walked back, not the anon post of the tweet. It was a pretty extreme reaction to a relatively banal tweet. Now you’re blowing that out of all proportion too. Constituent conversations tend not to match the wild tenor of Village 14 comment threads.
If there is one position in the city that should be filled by someone who respects their neighbor, who can hear complaints with empathy, who works to pull people together, it is Ward Councilor. For the last ten years Ward 5 has been fortunate to have John Rice listening with a smile and a healthy measure of respect.
I’m not hearing it from this direction.
We live in a complicated city requiring thoughtful leadership. Not ideological reactionaries of any stripe.
I simply speechless.
I dunno Greg. Based on prior posts protesting the write-in campaign, I kinda doubt Bill is your chosen candidate. And this does follow a pattern for you regarding pulling twitter posts to “discuss” from the folks you don’t support. You do the same thing with Emily when she is inconsistent.
You are sort of an equal opportunity stir-the-pot type person apparently. And to think the Emily Norton true believers think you only pick on her!
Frankly I could do with a bit less of this type of post (both twitter and forum), but I didn’t think it was a big deal that Bill said what he said. And I say that as someone likely to vote for Kathy…
As for the settle down comment, it would have been funnier if he had said “simmer down” since that was a good SNL skit back in the day. If Bill said that to a random constituent it would be rather rude, but you are not exactly that. You can’t be a stir-the-pot, forum hosting guy one minute, and a shrinking violet the next. You doth protest too much, and all that.
And I say all that with love. 😉
If you recover from your dire wound inflicted by Bill, I’m sure you will live to post again. And I definitely believe Jane will regain the power of speech shortly as well. Just a guess for both. 😉
I’ll simmer down now too. Counting down the days until the election ends…and the days until Cafe Nero opens up (I’m a sucker for their desserts and coffee).
@Fig: I actually love the write in campaign because I think it consumes a lot of time and resources from the side I don’t side with that could be more productively spent on more winnable contests.
But I digress. Thanks for reminding Emily Norton’s fans that I’m an “equal opportunity stir-the-pot type person.” But honestly I wasn’t trying to stir anything by sharing his tweet. I thought it was interesting. I had no idea he wasn’t applying it to our local conversation.
And for the record Fig, Bill didn’t tell me to “settle down.” Look at the thread again. I hadn’t commented by that point. I was reacting to him telling others to “settle down.” I just found it, um, unsettling.
I just realized I can’t even vote for Bill or Kathy. Our system gives me a ******* headache.
Ok, off to bed for me. Settling down for the night.
I agree with Terry and Jane. The tweet reminds me of how last year Bill blamed a police officer for killing a motorist. The real killer was a felon gang member. A right wing media personality brought attention to Bill’s tirade against the officer. Before Bill walked back his comments, he consumed four days painting himself as an innocent victim of the right wing. Now Bill is not only taking shots at the right, but at “naive” people who share his beliefs.
Good councilors work with people and for people that they don’t always agree with. From looking at Bill’s website, I see no evidence that he has ever worked with people with disparate views.
Here is a link to last year’s news. https://village14.com/2018/08/02/ward-5-city-council-candidate-criticizes-cops-in-mashpee/#axzz63huGxJRZ
“Settle down” is from the daily lexicon of youngsters like Bill. I live with a teen, any time I mention “homework”, “common app”, “it’s trash night” I hear a lot of “settle down”. So let’s not get all ageist on here, I find some age diversity on this old timers’ site to be refreshing.
If, as Rhanna suggests “settle down” is a generational/cultural reference that I misinterpreted, then, uh, I’m cool. It would be helpful, however, if Bill could clarify.
Meanwhile, I’m still interested in discussing the substance of Bill’s tweet through a local prism (even if he didn’t mean it that way). Can we just “get along” without resolving substantive differences? I don’t know the answer to that, which is why I asked it.
If an election weren’t imminent, Bill’s tweet could just be considered as a reaction to the recent post on, as some would say, “why can’t we all just get along.” Taking it that way, I agree with him. Platitudes about “getting along” have been around since I was young, back in the dark ages. We can’t all get along all the time. It’s over simplistic as most platitudes are.
We can all be civil. And I think that was more the point to the post. We can be civil to almost everyone almost all of the time. We can work with each other when we don’t agree. Bill is not saying we cannot.
I agree the most with Terry Malloy’s comment, “We live in a complicated city requiring thoughtful leadership. Not ideological reactionaries of any stripe.”
I can’t vote in this race either so just my two cents.
I find “settle down” to less disconcerting that “calm down,” but that may be my age and gender. And yes, I have heard my adolescent grandsons say “settle down” both among their peer group and to their parents who respond appropriately. I’ve also heard worse.
Fair enough Greg. But you posted the post, so I would have responded to you too if I was in Bill’s position.
Of course, if he is telling Jerry to settle down, I’m ready to throw down.
(No one puts Jerry in a corner. Not even Jerry Orbach. And he was on law and order. Where is Lennie Briscoe when we need him…)
(Rhanna, is it ageist if I’m quoting Dirty Dancing and no one is going to understand the reference below the age of 40? Asking for a friend…)
(settling down again).
And Rhanna is right, my kids tell me to settle down all the time. And I respond with “Simmer…Down…Now…”
This may be why they secretly hate me.
Bill Humphrey, Great Tweet! Wishful Thinking!
If my teen told me to settle down, a butt whooping would ensue (not literally, before anyone flips out!) Respect ✊
Not sure in what world settle down is used in non-heated situations
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=settle%20down
The urban dictionary can’t keep pace. This is the translation of “settle down” when spoken to a parent:
“I love you mom/dad, and I appreciate your efforts to teach me responsibility. But at the moment there’s pressing urgency for me to respond to the group chat and watch some important Instagram stories. Plus, there’s absolutely no way the trash won’t get out tonight because you’ll remind me 5 or 6 times about it, so you can relax.”
@Rhanna: Lucky you..in my house five or six take out the trash requests later, I’m still going to be the one taking out the trash.
As for the topic at hand, while development and housing are very important issues to me, I’ve never believed that those are the issues that will decide next week’s election. Every canvassing candidate and neighbor I’ve spoken to makes it clear that voters care about a very broad cross section of issues. And that’s where we can find common ground.
None of the people on this thread are Bill’s parents; they are potential constituents.
Civility is overrated.
After the 2012 elections, the [then] Board of Aldermen voted to block patients from obtaining medical marijuana after their constituents voted to allow it. It’s hard to be “civil” when local officials attack patient’s rights. Especially for families whose sick loved ones found relief from medical cannabis.
Worth noting, Bill Humphrey has been a consistent supporter of cannabis rights. When the entire City Council doubled down and tried to block adult use cannabis after their constituents voted for it, Bill Humphrey came on V-14 and told them they were wrong. He not only read that issue correctly, he also had the courage to speak truth to power. I want people like that on the City Council.
lol owned, Greg.