Local Org. Calls Taxpayer-Funded Studies “Unfair To People Who Don’t Like To Read”
*Satire ahead!*
A coalition of local conservative organizations rallied in front of Borough Hall today to protest an increase in printed, peer-reviewed studies about local hot-button issues. The march was organized by the the Blindly Reactionary Conservative Caucus or BRCC, a group of loosely-affiliated civic organizations, neighborhood watches, awards luncheons, literal trolls, and defenders of traditional methods of civic dialog such as passive-aggressive note writing.
The rally set up outside of Borough Hall, with eight angry conservative protesters braving chilly weather and mild winds. Protest signs were limited to 280 characters or less, and most attendees were waving torn-out portions of the New York Post with their own commentary angrily stuffed into the margins with magic marker.
The event concluded with a bonfire made of local traffic studies and blue-ribbon commission findings. Said one protester as they heaved a pile of school overcrowding reports into the flames, “I don’t need a bunch of carefully organized meetings from diverse constituencies to tell me how to solve school overcrowding. Just deport all the Asians. If these reports aren’t about deporting all the Asians, then I don’t wanna read them. I already know the solution, so why can’t they just do what I say?”
The organizer of the protest and BRCC president Sean Gammie said in a press release that “…our out-of-touch city bureaucracy must stop wasting taxpayer dollars studying things and then putting the findings in letters, words, and even sentences. I’ve seen whole paragraphs used. By putting these studies in written language, the government is willfully obfuscating their findings from blindly reactionary citizens who engage only in all-caps headlines. We…”
The rest of the press release was cut off, presumably as Mr. Gammie disgustedly realized he was, in fact, communicating ideas using full sentences. 311 records show that multiple neighbors reportedly heard Mr. Gammie shouting the rest of his press release from his bathroom window at a group of teenagers smoking a joint in his driveway, but audio was not immediately available.
“We should ban transparent, public commissions. It’s a waste of tax dollars to discuss removing monuments to Nazi Collaborators in the Canyon of Heroes.” — Jay Quags, Bay Ridge resident
“I’ve never once seen a public study or piece of research cited in a Facebook debate, or cited in a Tweet amongst outraged fellow citizens, or referenced at a Community Board meeting.” said Christy DeSoto, who attended the protest. “So why is the city even generating them? It’s a waste. They should spend the money on solutions, rather than misguided attempts to verify whether their solutions will work. It’s offensive to our presumed intelligence.”
“I am a member of the local community board,” said Jeremy McAliston. “One time a Department of Transportation official had the gall to cite a carefully produced three-year study of traffic patterns in our neighborhood, cross-referenced with international trends and statistics. How dare she defend her proposal with an in-depth study I don’t want to read.”
Numerous BRCC protesters complained that intelligence, reading ability, and attention spans posed an unfair barrier to civic engagement. “People are driven to engage with their community because they are outraged. Outraged people don’t have time to read up on facts. The system is broken.” said Mrs. DeSoto.
Local Conservative politicians voiced their support of the protest by blindly re-tweeting coverage of the event with no commentary.
