It’s been quite the exciting week on the campaign trail for reelection. One day I was accused of creating a downtown “skid row” by bringing in all the bars, saloons, and honkey tonks. The very next day, in the wake of the city council’s decision to expand our smoking ordinance to cover stand-alone bars, I was accused of trying to shut down all those bars, saloons, and honkey tonks. I’ve been depicted as a rat by those who hate bars and, just tonight, likened to Hitler by those who love smoking bars.
The beauty and messiness of local democracy.
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I’ve long made the case it is precisely in a city where democracy is birthed, learned, and practiced. It is in the context of a city where my self-interest is immediately met with my neighbor’s self-interest. Democracy, when working, tempers my passions and moderates my views to the extent that I have a higher goal: living peacefully with my neighbor. Democracy, when working, is quite humanizing and civilizing.
But today, we have a generation of people whose only rearing in democracy came with an eye to national politics and on a steady diet of cable news, radio talk shows, outrageous websites, and the increasing reality of only listening and befriending those with whom we already agree. We are beginning to understand Plato’s concern that democracy could quickly devolve into tyranny. Instead of the democratic spirit of “how can we work this out together,” the political honors of the day go to the one who stands on his ideological principal without wavering and without compromise. “It’s my way or else!”
One of my goals for my time in office has been to be a part of a national renaissance in democracy by helping turn the hearts of this generation back to the city. I continue to believe that we can begin to restore the broken democracy of our nation to the extent that we can restore it right here in Denton.
To that end, it has been a mark of my brief council career to make local democracy sexy again. To show our citizens that our city is a platform upon which they create. That they can have meaningful impact on the future of Denton. That they can move from becoming culture consumers to cultural creators.
And there are times as a city that we must confront big issues and significant questions. This week’s council discussion and vote on the smoking ordinance is a great example – it is polarizing, it involves fundamental political philosophical questions, and both sides feel passionately that they are on the side of justice. This week was a culmination of a community discussion that began over two years ago when the council first took up the issue. In keeping with my values of the power and possibility of democracy, when the dialogue started to turn south, I reached out to my biggest critics on this issue and invited them into my home for beers and open dialogue.
Anyone following the council discussion during the last two meetings knows that I worked hard to forge a compromise – hoping to both move us closer to a comprehensive smoking ordinance and find some opening for consensus on a very polarizing issue. At the end of the day, I work together with 6 other intelligent, hard working, lovers of Denton on the City Council. Through changes and suggestions and hours of discussion, we found a way to get 5 of us to agree.
And though some of us disagreed – and at times, quite passionately – I’d go out for beers with any of them and talk about their kids, their career, their ideas, and find ways to work with them on making Denton a better city. That is democracy at its best.
I get it that people can get exceedingly frustrated with a view of mine or a vote I make. I totally respect that such things make them want to find someone else to fill my council seat. I get it that there a bar owners that want to throw concerts to “Rock Against Roden” and genuinely appreciate that there’s a local government issue sexy enough to bring more people into the process (even if it is to vote me out). I even get it that those frustrations and passions tempt you to devolve into the very sort of rhetoric that we despise coming out of DC and that you start throwing around references to Hitler.
But before you do, think about how we can make our city better if we refrain.
And for my friends who may be tempted to boycott certain bars or the like – don’t. That doesn’t help either. We need more interactions with people with whom we disagree, not less.
Think about how Denton can actually be on the cutting edge of democratic discourse if we tried to subvert the status quo and disrupt the devolution of democracy we are experiencing. My friends, we could change the world. That’s what Denton does.