MINOT — I have to admit to being baffled by the Fargo City Commission's decision to stop broadcasting the public comment portion of its meetings.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that these comment periods can get out of hand. Many local governments around the state have seen their good-faith efforts to include public comment in their proceedings be co-opted by cranks who subject them, and the larger public, to their delusional (and, in some cases, downright abusive) rants. The city of Dickinson, for instance, struggled with how to keep their public comment periods going without also providing a venue for a local gadfly to promote his crude observations about women and the Jewish community.

We Americans have a right to free speech. We do not have a right to an audience. A good-faith effort

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