Jurist Roscoe Pound once famously observed that “the law must remain stable yet it cannot stand still.” What is true of the law is true of communities – including Whitewater.
Among some (but not all) of the few who have held sway in this town for the last generation, changes are unwelcome, and change itself to produce greater stability must seem paradoxical.
No matter, this is the city’s direction, all around us, reflected not in the wishes of a few, but the countless free and voluntarily transactions of thousands of residents each day.
A quick follow-up on open government, along these lines. Whitewater’s latest school board meeting, from 3.19.18, is available online. That’s good for open government (as they should be online), but then open government brings a wider good. The more one sees, regularly and in the most complete form, the more suitably conventional government becomes (people see without mystery, and officials find themselves governing without an air of conceit).
Those are causes of greater stability, and part of a well-ordered politics.
A right is, so to speak, right in-and-of itself; it’s also useful to assure a successful community: ‘stable and yet it cannot stand still.’