Whitewater’s now seeing what it’s like to experience a negative and deceptive campaign, but our city is better than that. To cleanse the palate, consider what politics should and can be.
Respect for facts and sound reasoning. People are naturally smart and reasonable, not just a few, but many, in every part of a community.
Those aren’t merely happy words, but a fundamental truth: society is not the work of a clique, but of vast numbers of people engaged in productive, mutually beneficial transactions every day.
In a marketplace of ideas, dodgy and deceptive claims are refutable, as one can draw on better works to cast aside erroneous ones.
America is in the forefront of all the world in science, technology, economics, and art. We’re that way because we have a society open to diverse talents.
Our high standards in other fields are no less applicable to our politics. Success elsewhere should encourage us to greater success in political life.
Looking clearly. Observation – valuable observation – in politics is no different from observation required to make a major purchase or decide on a place to live: looking honestly at circumstances, then deciding what they mean.
A person looking at life in Whitewater may see things he both likes and hopes will change, and at a minimum he or she should see simple facts the way most other people do. (The same white house, the same gray dog, the same green tree, etc.).
By contrast, someone who tells you that life’s not changed in Whitewater since 1958, or even 1978, isn’t noticing life as it truly is. On the contrary, that view is a good bit wrong, and a good bit strange, too.
We can, and should, look carefully and accurately.
Flexibility. A few decisions involve liberty directly, but most involve policy differences at the margins.
Saying what one will never do, in advance, on ordinary policy is profoundly ignorant – it presumes to see facts and alternatives that are not immediately known.
In fact – as a candidate who truly understood economics would know (and many people understand intuitively) – economic decisions are made at the margin. For buyers, one weighs a possible purchase against alternatives (opportunity cost), and for sellers, one weighs the benefit of additional expenditures for more units produced (marginal cost).
Those who decide economic alternatives presumptively are economically confused, and honestly are providing voters or clients only mediocre service.
One should be open to possibilities; anything less is unworthy of others’ confidence.
Ignoring status. We are a people, and a city of people, who are equals in liberty under law. We don’t need dignitaries, VIPs, majesties, or self-appointed poobahs. A few will try to use supposed status to cajole people into doing what they want them to do.
Ignore these unprincipled appeals to status – we are all equals.
Knowing credentials don’t trump careful, ongoing study. Good and careful work is good in-and-of itself, not through an appeal to credentials. If what someone writes is strong, it’s strong on the basis of reasoning and composition, not the author’s credentials (or vain declaration of them).
Similarly, someone who signs every statement with credentials can’t make shoddy reasoning and writing better by appending PhD after his or her name. PhD, MBA, JD, MD, NFL, CBS, whatever – they don’t make poor work good, and can’t make good work better.
Being one’s own man or woman. Liberty and equality – the heritage of our vast, continental republic – are best enjoyed by people as individuals.
What a sad thing it would be for a free person to set aside his or her opportunities to become another’s mere catspaw.
We can turn away from that path, reasoning, writing, and choosing as men and women standing on their own feet. The great men and women of our civilization cared for others as bold and independent leaders, on the foundation of their own individuality.
We can do the same, by their positive example.