State of the Union: Sweating the Small Stuff
Writing in the Indianapolis Star, Dan Carpenter notes the tendency of more and more folks to stress over the little things while ignoring the bigger ones: “When we work up outrage over the $3 gas we are pumping into a $35,000 truck, are we substituting the trivial for the meaningful out of despair we could ever solve the global warming we’re complicit in?
Are we fussing about what time it is lest we stop to consider it may be running out?
When we find our way to the Statehouse to weigh in against the latest communist scheme for gun control, are we defending our homes against tyranny or just playing cowboy as the adult world turns out of our control?
Successful politicians generally know better than to bother voters with heavy lifting. The trick is to dispose of serious, complex issues with platitudes and then to belabor the issues of convenience as if God were on the side of the disgruntled.”
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June 19th, 2007 @ 7:26 am
This is good, Bob.
One community that seemed to give its citizens the job of doing the “heavylifting” is British Columbia, a couple of years ago. They recognized that politicians and government officials could not solve election reform issues, so they established the mechanism of “The Citizens Assembly” of about 750 regulars folks from all over British Columbia, to meet regularly, hold hearings with experts and laypeople, get paid a per diem, and come up with draft reform legislation on the mandated election reform issues. If the legislature did not pass that legislation, it had to go to the people for a vote.
Check out this approach. Just do a google search.
June 19th, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
Intersting, Jack. The point of the reporter is well taken. I have long been amazed by how heated up people get over small things, and ignore the big ones completely — not that you can always ignore small issues — I want the trash picked up, and not spilled all over the driveway — but one needs to ask “Is this something trivial and unconnected, or do I need to spend my days on it, as fundamental and linked to much?”