Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 23. Sunrise is 6:37 AM and sunset 5:38 PM for 11h 01m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1803, in Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the principle of judicial review.
So, a cat shows up at another city’s council meeting, and meows during the proceedings. A simple lesson would be that people, in Whitewater and elsewhere, should be afforded opportunities more convenient than a cat’s meows from the rafters.
And so, and so, everyone has a chance to speak, for the same amount of time, in public meetings that remain public proceedings (rather than façades for backroom dealing).
If it’s a public body, it must remain a public proceeding. If it’s a private body, then it can and should remain a private proceeding. Private men do not own, and so they are not to control, public bodies and proceedings. Hybrid proceedings, where government and business are mixed, become special interest business meetings.
Consider: Few in Whitewater are more opposed to the populists, that anti-individualism horde, than this libertarian blogger. And yet, and yet, they must be allowed to speak regardless of their anti-speech cravings. (It is they, not others, who whine about being insulted, and so seek to ban speech they don’t like. Tant pis: their skins are too thin and their tempers too short. We do not have their inclinations and will not adopt their practices.)
The same is true for the entitled, special-interest business lobby. On their tongues: Don’t you know who we are? In reply: Yes, no better than any, but worse in policy than most.
God did not choose the political factions in this city; they formed of their own accord, for their own, all-too-human ends. (If God had chosen one of these groups, one could expect that He would have given them instruction in better policies and humbler demeanor.)
Slowly, and fitfully, Whitewater moves toward a more egalitarian politics, in fulfillment of the American standard of equal treatment under law. This small and beautiful city deserves no less.