Lucy Loomis

The following email was sent to Sturgis Library director Lucy Loomis in 2015.  No response was ever received.  And yet her “Sturgis Acceptable Behavior Policy,” adopted one year after she permanently banned me w/o warning and w/o due process, clearly stipulates that “Patrons whose privileges have been revoked may have the decision reviewed by the Board of Library Trustees.”  In the absence of accountability, people in power positions like Loomis can do and say whatever they want, including adopting policies and not abiding by the policies adopted.  Hypocrites at the helm likely constitute the majority of people in power positions today in America's ever declining democracy...

From: todslone@hotmail.com

To: sturgislibrary@comcast.net

CC: sturgisreference@comcast.net; khorn@clamsnet.org; fblowrie@gmail.com; sangus@kinlingrover.com; ppronovost@capecodonline.com; editor@barnstablepatriot.com; pen-newengland@mit.edu; mgiangregorio@aclum.org

Subject: Cartoonists assassinated, free speech massacred, a plea for justice in Barnstable, MA

Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2015 18:29:48 -0400

To Director Lucy Loomis, Sturgis Library:

It has been almost three years now since you permanently banned me from my neighborhood library, the one my tax dollars help support.  No due process was offered, as you know, despite my request.  How odd to me that this could and in fact did happen in America!  My civil rights are being denied today because, as you know, I am not permitted to attend any cultural or political events held at my neighborhood library.  And yet I have never been charged with a crime, let alone misdemeanor.  

In any event, I am requesting that you consider rescinding your order because the sole reason you provided for it, that I represented a potential physical danger (“for the safety of staff and public”) is clearly an invalid one.  After all, not one person on Sturgis Library’s staff or in the United States of America in general has been harmed, let alone threatened, by me.  

As you know, my only real “crime” was NOT one of potential violence, but rather the written criticism I’d disseminated with your regard, in particular, the library statement that “libraries should provide materials and information that present all points of view.”  My point of view and the points of view of all those people published in The American Dissident, as you know, are currently banned at Sturgis Library, thus proving that statement to be hypocritical.  

Freedom of speech was massacred in Paris several months ago by Islamist haters of freedom of speech.  Do you really wish to continue siding with those free-speech hating murderers of cartoonists?  Please be reminded that freedom of speech, vigorous debate, and due process are in fact democracy’s very cornerstones, while banning speech because you do not like it or somehow think it is violent is definitely not, nor is obligatory deference to those in power, be they presidents or library directors.  

Finally, you will note that when I was visiting Sturgis almost on a daily basis, never was I informed that I might have been breaking a library regulation.  In fact, is freedom of speech not permitted at Sturgis?  If so, I should have at least been warned and directed to that regulation.  

Thank you for your attention and hopeful reconsideration.