How Many Rights for Whitewater?
How many rights do Whitewater’s residents possess? It’s a simple question, and there’s a simple answer: They possess all the rights of residency or citizenship, respectively, of Americans and Wisconsinites elsewhere.
One may express this plainly:
I’ve sadly heard more than once – including recently – of someone told that there’s a special local custom, etc., of a public body, or in our schools, that implicitly trumps national or state laws.
There isn’t.
It’s not some American rights, or some Wisconsin rights, for residents or citizens (depending on legal status). It’s all of those rights.
Fortunately, this is clear to most people; to hear otherwise is rare.
Still, one encounters a few people like this, now and again. I’d guess they mostly know that what they’re saying is wrong, but contend as they do selfishly or lazily, to have their way, or to shirk their duties.
The one thing these few do not deserve, and so must not have, is their way. It’s America’s way, and Wisconsin’s way, that all Whitewater deserves, and so must have.
What Standards for Whitewater?
This post is a companion to one from yesterday on rights, entitled, How Many Rights for Whitewater?
Whitewater is a place of great natural beauty, hundreds of years of indigenous and settled living, and a quaint, small-town scene.
If residents of Whitewater should have the same rights as those elsewhere in Wisconsin and America – and so they should and do have – then what can one stay about the standards for politics and policy in the city?
Just as one’s rights should be no less than elsewhere, so also the standards of politics and policy should be the highest standards of Wisconsin, of America, and of the civilized world beyond.
One may put this plainly about standards, in a fashion similar to yesterday’s about rights:
Often it’s not love at all, but merely desire masquerading as love’s deeper devotion.
For all her many charms, Whitewater brings this risk, one that other small towns face: that practices truly beneath our state or country will be falsely exalted as higher than anywhere else. This may come from neediness, insecurity, self-promotion, laziness, etc.
I’m sure are many reasons; none justify mediocre local practices over excellent state and national ones.
We can be a happy & quaint town while embracing national (and even international) standards. Truly, we can be a happy & quaint, vibrant & prosperous town in no other way.
Pretending that everything that happens here is better than anything else that happens anywhere else is destructive to our politics and policymaking. Fabricating awards and pretending we’re the Center of the Known Universe Where All is Eternally Exceptional™ is beneath us.
It’s a defeatist position: rather than trying to do better, some simply exaggerate how they’re doing. They may also believe that they can do no better than they’re doing.
I’ve neither deference nor respect for these notions. They may doubt what they can do; I know that we are just as capable (and as deserving) of the highest standards of care.
The time a few spend pretending, exaggerating, showboating, grandstanding, and outright lying is time lost to actual accomplishment and progress.
One can always improve, and we can improve our local politics and small city most profoundly when we drink deeply of the clear waters of our advanced, prosperous country.
To do so will be only to our advantage: we will have combined Whitewater’s great natural beauty and quaint small-town scene with the highest standards of politics and policy from all America.
These, also, are the true and high standards that all Whitewater deserves, and so must have.
Methods, Standards, Goals
Whitewater doesn’t have, and hasn’t had, a legitimate press that would serve as a check on political or corporate power. On the contrary, what’s passed for reporting in our area is merely written sycophancy. In this way, Whitewater has been ahead of a national trend toward a weaker press, or no press at all.
Yet, before plentiful newspapers, before a vigorous press, America had vigorous inquiry and debate. We’re now returning to something like our early era of pamphleteering, made incomparably better for being both audio-visual and also more dynamic between readers and authors. For the waning press, the new way represents a shock of inclusion, but that shock is all to the good.
What, then, shall we do, in this new (but in some ways old) world?
This world will not be won through grand pronouncements, but through daily work, repeated over months, seasons, and years. One begins every day with new work to do, knowing there is always more to do, tenaciously approached from the perspective of a dark horse underdog.
That sort of work requires methods, standards, and goals.
Methods. One should have a method, in the case of a blogger, with Steps for Blogging on a Policy or Proposal. There should be a discernible pattern to one’s work.
Critically, though, method should meet one’s standards and goals. Just as the Romans had to build a fleet, mostly from scratch, to battle Carthage, so one sometimes has to build new things to achieve one’s goals. In those cases when a new method or medium is required to carry the day, one learns, builds, and deploys those methods or media accordingly.
If one needs ships, and doesn’t have them, one learns shipbuilding, and then builds ships.
Standards. We are an advanced people, as are many of our friends abroad. We deserve more than dodgy data, deceptive claims, and lazy work.
The overwhelming number of people in any community are sharp and capable; society would not be possible otherwise. Libertarians (as I am) do not hold this as true because we say it; we say it because it is true.
(Some number of people in any community are permanently disabled or disadvantaged. We do not need obligations from them; they need comfort from us.)
For our city, then, we owe ourselves the best of Wisconsin, of America, and of civilized places beyond, for all Whitewater.
Goals. A community’s future may take diverse ideological hues, of left, right, or center. That will always matter less than that our community – each person, individually – is assured the rights of all of America, and all of Wisconsin, for all of Whitewater.
One can see that a community’s fixation on a few key people, stakeholders, or influencers is both childish and destructive. It’s to the good that this way of thinking slowly wanes in Whitewater: it’s been bad for our politics, and not a single mature & reasonable person will ever miss it.
Those who glory in personality are proud; those who submit to such people are pitiful.
The goal, then, should be rights universally upheld, but the obstacle is bias, partiality, and the overweening entitlement of a few against the many. It’s to the best, all things being otherwise fair, to balance against power, as Churchill observed of Britain in the nineteenth century: “We have in all occasions been the friend of the second strongest power in Europe and have never yielded ourselves to the strongest power.”
So it should be with commentary: balancing against the conflict-riddled, influence-seeking of a few, who would manipulate politics or economics to their illegitimate ends.
In method, standards, and goals this is decisive: a dogged commitment each day, assuring a better future.