Do The Right Thing Movement
Has All The Right Answers…
And Saves Having To Think For Yourself
From the people who brought you the Citizen Empowerment Committee and St. Chuck Watch, there is yet another “All Things To All People” political committee you can join. They call themselves the “Do The Right Thing Committee”. Their mission is simple. They want local elected public officials to do the right thing. Brilliant!
Now if we can only get our State officials, Congress, the President, all the leaders of the world and every major political, religious, cultural and ethnic group to agree we could finally achieve that world peace thing and be well on the way to forming that “Federation” that seems to work so well on Star Trek.
There is just one small problem. Who gets to decide what doing the right thing is?
Now I’ve always been partial to making up my own mind. Call me old fashioned, but I really like to have all the facts and then vote the way I think is best. The voters of my ward entrusted me with that responsibility and it is not one I will lightly surrender to whomever can pack a Council meeting on a given evening.
Last Tuesday the “Do the Right Thing Committee” set about to storm City Hall. Blast e-mails went out to be there. They coordinated with their sister organization, The Citizen Empowerment Committee, which mailed out an estimated 1,400 invitations to people who had signed recall petitions in the 7th and 3rd Wards. They were going to storm City Hall. The City Administrator took them seriously. He had signs put up in the elevators telling people that television monitors had been set up on the first floor of City Hall for the overflow crowds.
But the turnout just didn’t match the hype. The largest part of the crowd in the Council Chambers turned out to be the returning Lewis & Clark Discovery Expedition. They were there, many in costume, to receive the well deserved accolades and thanks of the Mayor and Council for recreating a fantastic voyage of discovery and being wonderful ambassadors of our community. Then there were the people who came down in support of the City Parks Board’s plans for an off-leash dog park. There were also Parks Foundation members who were there to tell us how much good the money had done we contributed to help underprivileged children and families use our aquatic centers and other parks programs.
Take away the city staff members and regulars who are always at our meetings and the combined attendance of the Citizen Empowerment Committee and the Do The Right thing Committee was 28 people. Sorry, I also have to take away the one gentleman from the 7th Ward who said he got their letter telling people who signed the recall petitions to storm City Hall and just wanted to come down to the Council and tell us he never signed the petition.
Of the 27 remaining, most were familiar faces. There was also a former Councilman and another former candidate for the Council, and a few other erstwhile candidates who no doubt see these groups as their ticket to ride in the next election. After all, one of the stated objectives of the Do The Right Thing Committee is to pick a slate of candidates to run in the City elections in 2007.
One of the lighter moments of the evening was when one member of the group addressed the City Council and said with a straight face that their membership was approaching 1,000! I’m sure when he wrote those remarks he was expecting us to be looking out at a sea of people instead of a puddle. They need to stop believing their own press.
One of the strange things about ideological groups who claim a superior moral compass is they also have to make themselves believe they are in the majority. What’s dangerous is when elected public officials start to believe them and stop thinking for themselves.
Recently our Nation observed the 300th anniversary of the birth of American patriot, statesman, inventor and philosopher Benjamin Franklin. It prompted me to finish reading Walter Isaacson’s book, Benjamin Franklin – An American Life. I’m very glad I did, for within those pages was some great advice for anyone (including myself) who starts to take themselves too seriously.
“…having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and pay more respect to the judgment of others…Most men, indeed as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth…But, though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady, who, in a little dispute with her sister said: “I don’t know how it happens sister, but I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right.”
