• Madeline Hancock

Our city’s county deputy assessor Larry Stein recently shared a not-so-nice opinion regarding the Ferguson, Missouri, protests.

He posted to his Facebook: “There hasn’t been this great of a racial divide in America since the 1805’s. Congrats to the thugs and animals in Ferguson.”

Yeah, there’s this thing called the First Amendment. He posted it to his own page. The post has been removed. He replied via email to KFOR.com with this comment: “I have removed my private personal thoughts, shared on a webpage, that proves some people have very thin skin and may try to bully those who speak things they don’t like to hear.”

In other words, “You can’t handle the truth!” (Read out loud in the voice of Jessep (Jack Nicholson) in A Few Good Men.) Many readers disagreed, and some even called for his resignation.

Social media expert Patrick Allmond told KFOR.com: “There’s no ‘on the record,’ ‘off the record’ anymore when you’re on social media. You are always on the record.”