2:30pm | It was no surprise that Robert Garcia and Bob Foster won reelection last night. And I could be wrong, but even if you voted for their opponents, I think you shouldn’t lose any sleep over thinking that these are a couple of guys who don’t want, foremostly, the best for Long Beach, their (our) community. They do*. The two just might differ here and there on questions of what that is and how best (or better) to get it.
(*Clearly, near and far, there are sometimes people who are motivated more primarily by other ends: ideology, career advancement, etc.)
Ramifying from the democratic process is that all sorts of ingredients get thrown into the soup. If you’re cooking right, the flavors are supposed to play off each other. You, as a citizen (and, I hope, a voter) get a taste of whatever’s in (t)here. Or you have the chance to, anyway. You are force-fed a bit (whether you know it or not (in this metaphor, with one of those feeding tubes, I guess)), but you don’t have to dine willingly.
We (uppercase W: ‘We’—but we, too) put these people into office, these ingredients into the soup, all sorts of people*, all over this country, into this forum, this political forum, where they interact at various levels and form little teams and whose ideas get poured into another bowl/forum metaphor deal and have at it, battle it out in memetic mortal combat or whatever—in the process of forming and carrying out policies, purchases, laws, experiments in living. That’s part of democracy. Our democracy.
This being the process, what you hope—if you, too, are motivated mostly by what is best for your community—is that these varying people listen to each other’s ideas, taste them1. Especially when they differ. Because that is when those elected officials whose earnest beliefs about what is best (for Long Beach, for California, for the United States and the rest of our Community) and how better/best to get it happen to be wrong in those beliefs, it is because they are mistaken on the subject, and for no other reason. And so, were they to learn of their mistakenness, they would immediately change their mind, tactics, etc.—and so no longer be mistaken. And then they and we would all be better off, bit by bit.
The moral of that story is that the more our pols listen to and reflect on the words of their opposites in the debate, the better the chances of their being converted from being mistaken. That practice is a sure way to a better community: really to try to understand the opinion of (s)he who is opposite you, to examine it as if by doing so you may learn something on the subject, as if it might be better than yours, even concerning getting the things you most want (e.g., a better community).
That intent, reflective listening is my humble request to all elected officials, last night in Long Beach, everywhere and always.
Robert Garcia and Bob Foster are not meant here to represent positions or approaches at ideological poles of one sort or another; they’re just two examples of people not marked with a * who want the best for their community, whatever that means, and who were just thrown back into the soup. Two parts of experiments in government cooking, something like that. You get the idea.
Footnote
1“Them” refers to “ideas.” Don’t be childish.