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By mystoneycreek (registered) - website | Posted December 12, 2010 at 12:42:04
This letter is a great example of why we need a better mechanism for people to properly grasp the salient facts of any given issue. (It also points up the supercharged tendency for people to shift into righteous-indignation mode. Which is fine...as long as they properly grasp the salient facts.)
What bothers me about this issue...and just about all others featured here on RTH...is that a) there's a deeply-embedded perception that nothing but mismanagement and chicanery go on at City Council, b) there's a ridiculously wide chasm between so many commenters' understanding of the issue and the actual facts, and c) most energies are spent not in arguing different stances based on a good grasp on facts, but on ratcheting up this just-mentioned righteous-indignation mode. (I'll add that it sure appears to me that few people taking the time to comment -or even in the real world, on buses, in malls, on streets- actually understand how local governance works.)
It's funny; what's called for regarding our public servants is more accountability, more transparency through better guidelines, rules and regulations. All fine and good. But I'm beginning to believe very strongly that we need to adjust the other side of this 'compact', that of the residents'.
So; until politicians 'get' that they have a critical -and moral- obligation to keep in mind who they're working for, and under what conditions, with what goals in mind, and until the citizenry 'get' that their idle, self-indulgent, uninformed prattlings serve no purpose than a variation on the modern 'entitlement' ethos, then we're in deep doodoo.
How does that quote go? "You're entitled to your own opinion. You're not entitled to your own facts.'
We really need to do more to increase the relationship of engagement between residents and their Councillors, because if we achieved this, I have no difficulties believing that the level of informed discourse would rise to unseen levels.
Comment edited by mystoneycreek on 2010-12-12 11:44:17
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