One hears much about the city, of serving the city, and public service. Yet, for all one hears, what is Whitewater?
It’s every resident, of a number now nearly fifteen-thousand. That’s a number far larger than those in city government, those working for the city, or those few who are quite sure that all the city is what they see from their side of a conference room table.
The thousands of residents in the city, and the hundreds of activities and transactions that occupy them each day, constitute the full and true activity of Whitewater.
You may have heard, now and again, the supposedly inspirational saying that ‘none of us is as important as all of us.’ Although that saying may have a value for team sports, it has a value nowhere else. In fact, I am convinced it represents a political misunderstanding about the worth of the individual, and American society.
Each and every person, alone as an individual, has a worth and value that no greater number, no overreaching majority, may trump. To believe otherwise is to allow the few, the different and distinctive, to be swept aside at the whim of the majority. That is neither our law nor, thankfully, our political tradition. Americans are a people of individual liberties, liberties that will not be sacrificed to the caprice of hordes, eager to have their way by force of numbers alone.
This city is one of many thousands, but many thousands of persons, particular and unique, possessing rights no group may trump, the manipulative claims of collective authority & group self-importance notwithstanding.