Democracy is very rude

Please, please, take a minute and think about what resolutions defining a particular standard of civil discourse - like the one passed at Sisters City Hall earlier this month - are really all about.

Perhaps you believe these kinds of groupthink, stress-card and safety-space resolutions are exactly what the world needs. I hereby acknowledge your point of view, but I am now terrified of you, in the Thoreau hiding out at Walden Pond sense of terrified.

I get it, there have been some harsh words thrown about and some feelings hurt in local politics. Don't care. Because here's the rub: if you step into the arena of public service, even as a volunteer, don't expect the world to repent of its evil ways and admire the sanctity of your motivations, your brilliance, fortitude and sacrifice. That's on you. Facing - and dealing with - harsh and sometimes personal criticism underwrites the essence of leadership - which is...wait for it: it's hard. Leadership - particularly in a public position - is tough stuff, friends, so why would anyone step into government service and expect it to be a sunshine joyride?

Why would they walk away when it wasn't?

Expect ridicule. Expect vociferous differing opinion, sometimes delivered in scathing personal attacks by shameless nabobs, and always delivered in inarticulate and somewhat spacey diatribes that reveal more about the people giving them than those who have to absorb them.

We know who the people are that behave this way. They are very often completely self-righteous, single-issue professional maniacs who, when they don't get their way - immediately - are not intelligent or creative enough to step gracefully off the stage, and then go home to reformulate a more convincing argument. They substitute that hard work with the easy option of character spiking and personal attacks, as if by raising their voices louder, questioning the integrity of others, and saying mean and denigrating things about their detractors, they will somehow convince others to share their point of view.

Shame on them. Truly. Stay home and grow up.

But shame also on those in public service who can't take the heat. I can say that with authority because I served a very long time on the streets of America as a cop. I've been called everything humanly imaginable in the course of my duties. People have threatened to kill me, and some have even tried. They've threatened to kill my wife, my children, my grandmother (that one still puzzles me), or to burn down my house and run over my dog. There is no such thing as civil discourse in that career - except that which is one way: from the officer to the public, on threat of termination.

Tough as it is, that's exactly the way it should be.

The biggest difficulty, for this citizen, about resolutions regarding civil discourse, is figuring out who gets to umpire this stuff. Who decides when the rules have been broken and the conversation is over? It wouldn't take much to believe that this sort of resolution is actually an artful dodge, so that one can only be heard by the government when the committee likes. Can the Promoters of Virtue and Preventers of Vice shut you down the minute they don't like the way you are speaking, and particularly if they don't like what you are saying? Will you be forwarded to remedial counseling? Will there be an intervention? Will a safe space be provided when they slap duct tape over your mouth?

That already happens, unnaturally in our republic, but this seems a step toward formalizing the process.

That sounds conspiratorial, and I have zero doubt that a nefarious conspiracy is not the intention of the resolution. I think it is a properly motivated expression of frustration by well-meaning people trying to move forward from exhausted killing fields. The 9 rules have their merits, and surely no one would be harmed if they were followed. But it feels odd, in the adult world, to be force-fed this stuff, like eating a giant bowl of jellyfish might feel odd.

Sadly, we can't paint the world safety-orange and make it pleasant for everyone, all the time. As Mark Twain reminded us, "Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination." This is never truer than in public service, where lunacy and extreme discomfort come with the territory. And may it always be so.