What is Spout Off?

SpoutOff is a “community in conversation with itself” to borrow the phrase of Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Walter Lippmann. If you have a compelling thought, a question, a concern or a critique that you want to communicate anonymously to the people of Cape May County, just click here to submit it. If your Spout makes the cut, it will be published to 81,000 readers in the printed Herald and 180,000 unique visitors per month online.
In sharing your thoughts, you not only get something off your chest, you participate with thousands of Cape May County citizens in the democratic process, the process that links us back to the very foundation of our exceptional experiment in representative democracy. Although SpoutOff may often be messy in word and thought, when it’s true to its purpose, it stands as a forum unfiltered by the elite, by those in power, and by those responsible for the public business. Political correctness and fear of petty retribution all take a holiday on SpoutOff while the most vulnerable and powerless among us are given a megaphone. To read just one week’s crop of SpoutOffs is to experience almost the entire range of human emotion and issues from man’s life in society. I’ve summarized just a few dozen below.
I have been told by some that Spout Off lacks standing because no one knows the author. My thinking is, the thoughts expressed stand on their own merit, as with the Federalist Papers, and some books of the Bible. In 1995 the Supreme Court reaffirmed its protections for anonymous speech when it stated in McIntyre vs. Ohio Elections Commission that,
Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.*
When Thomas Jefferson said, if he had to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” In saying that he was saying, the people’s involvement in governing themselves was more important than having a government. The more you participate, the stronger our community, and our nation become.
• Why should people go out and look for work, when they can get a free handout from the government? The system is broken and you cannot find anyone to work.
• East Greenwood Avenue is not a speedway. Please slow down.
• The middle class is being decimated on a continual daily basis.
• Politicians propose laws that benefit them directly, like the Cape May councilperson who proposed reducing the speed limit to 15 mph on several streets, including their own.
• Why would the city knowingly plant trees in spots that will cause overhead electrical wire issues?
• “Signs, signs, everywhere signs.” It’s overkill to a point that it takes away from the natural beauty of the area.
• The CM public works director continues to frivolously spend taxpayer money. They drive brand new vehicles through the salt water.
• (Some) get offended when reading the anti-shoobie spouts in the Herald. If we get in the way during the busy summer months, I apologize. But we love your area and would rather vacation here than Delaware or Maryland. Some folks really don’t know how lucky they are to live in CMC.
• The 2014 farm bill is not a hard-won triumph for bipartisanship but a case study in everything that’s wrong with Congress. This is a bill for the huge agriculture lobby, which, ground down reform advocates.
• To raise the debt limit would be unpatriotic.
• In 1941, Rep. Leland Ford wrote 10 golden rules of conduct, including: 2: “You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.” 3: “You cannot help small men by tearing big men down.” 4: “You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.” 8: “You cannot establish sound social security on borrowed money.”
• To the North Cape May spouter who complained about social services taking forever to work on cases: Call the SNAP office at 609-588-2197. They will help you. They helped me.
• The people want Republicans to start standing up to these environmental extremists. Here in the county, we are going to get stiffed with higher heating and AC costs due to their blocking natural gas fueled electrical generation.
• Councilman Neville, you told me when you were running for office that you would do something about the poor conditions of the streets in Town Bank…
• “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.” – Thomas Jefferson.
• Beach bars will create problems. Wildwood has enough.
• Vote no on the Rio Grande fire company budget. We see them parade around in million dollar fire trucks, they replace every 10 years even though they are like new.
• I call the Wildwood police. They say they are en route, and no officer shows up. To the spouter who said let the state take over, you are so right.
• Please stop disparaging the police. They do shift-work in all types of weather, with people trying to hurt them, spit at them, threaten their families, fight them, etc. They see the worst in the people, but still do the job.
• $136,000 plus benefits for the police chief is excessive. I hope the Crest leaders sit back and rethink that salary scale.
• Some of the residents in Lower Twp. are a bit overly critical of our council, mayor and manager. Overall, these guys seem to be genuine in their intentions and truly devoted to our great little township.
• Why should people work, if handed a free ride with no drug testing? They have it made; sadly most of their children will repeat the cycle. Shame on all enablers.
• Let’s follow suit with Ocean County and get these Big Brother, red-light cameras removed from our traffic lights.
• As an employee of WDC, I am afraid to say anything about the school being unsafe, because I don’t want it to affect my job.
• To the Crest spouter who asked why children receive free meals at school: I offer these words from, Jonathan Swift. “I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.”
• As long as we hold to a strict interpretation of the Second Amendment, we lose our First Amendment right to peaceful assembly. We can’t go into public places without fear.
• To the people complaining about how nice things in Cape May County are without shoobies: How nice it is that nothing around here is open.
• Why did Christie run for re-election as New Jersey Gov. when he’s out of state so much of the time?
• Dennis Township is not that big. There is no reason the trash collectors can’t catch up on the trash routes by week’s end.
• Warning! There’s a major pothole in the southbound center lane on the GSP around mile marker 10.5 or 10.6. It’s nasty!
• Davies Sports Complex in Middle Township is supposed to be open till 5 p.m. on Sat. I went to drop my kids off and the building was closed.
• Will the sheriff please put more officers on the street, to help out Middle Twp. with the traffic and the shopping centers?
• Will the prosecutor’s office take over the Wildwood police. There’s no leadership.
• Middle Township High School can’t afford to lay off any more teachers. Cut administrators and sports before teachers. If teachers do have to be cut, it should not be math, science nor language.
• There is water at Seashore Road and Sandman Blvd. blocking the roadway every time it rains.
• Democrats and their UN allies only want Catholic money and votes, but must leave their convictions at the door.
Love is eternal. There are inspired messages, but they are temporary; there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it will pass. 9 For our gifts of knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial; 10 but when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear. 1 Corinthians 13: 8-9