The wonderful poem quoted alongside came to mind this week, as we pondered the striking constellation of big issues currently under consideration in the local halls of government: a new law against homeowners allowing alcohol at teen parties, decisions about maintaining programs in the public school budget and a renewed search for operating revenue to support a community swimming pool.
Perhaps we can learn from the parable and recognize that the reasons we do what we’ve done before may no longer be relevant. Must we have a law for every problem? A program for every need? A tax for every service?
Just as the monks would have done better to ask what use now the cat actually serves, so too we might have to ask ourselves what use is more of the same approach (new laws, expansive programs, and another tax) will get us? Some or all of these government actions may turn out to be the smart move, and we’re happy to have these questions debated in public forums.
Readers know we’ve written on these topics over the last few years. There are no simple answers. Competing interests must be balanced, and consequences considered. In each of these cases, it seems really to be a question of mission.
Do we want our police to have authority to cite us in our homes based on what is a very arbitrary rule, namely that at age 21 a voting citizen is able to use alcohol responsibly, when the day before abuse was the presumption? Apparently, we do, based on the city council’s 4-1 vote on Wednesday. While we praise the goal, it’s the power we’d worried about, the power of government to dictate arbitrary rules for how we behave in our own homes. We do hope this new law will make a big difference in the problem of teen drinking, though we expect it’s really a problem of parenting, beyond the effective reach of government to solve.
Do we want our school district to operate, for example, the well-intentioned and arguably effective programs for teen mothers and for adults wanting to take classes? If there were no cost constraint, why not? But it’s our state taxes that pay for the schools and cost IS a constraint. The way we have preserved these programs does need to be questioned, and others, too, that may be outside the core mission of the public school system. We hasten here to note what great value we put on athletics, music, art and other extracurricular activities in helping students develop socially and emotionally. At some point, though – and California’s budget crisis is pushing that point closer – we may have to consider narrowing focus to what only the schools can produce: academic competence.
Do we want to tax ourselves to cover the risk of operating a community pool for Sonoma Valley? We had championed a pool proposal two years ago, before it foundered on the uncertainty of operating at break-even or better, and there is renewed interest now in a similar proposal. The prudent course may well be to seek voter approval for the paltry apportioned cost involved – far, far less, for example, than the cost of the open space and SMART train taxes we voters approved last year.
In our view, these issues highlight anew the wonder of representative government, and we count ourselves blessed to live in such a country as ours and to reap the benefits from the hard work by those neighbors whom we elect to office and from the diligence of their staff.
THE GURU’S CAT
When the guru sat down to worship
each evening the ashram cat would
get in the way and distract the
worshipers. So he ordered that
the cat be tied during evening
worship.
After the guru died the cat
continued to be tied during evening
worship. And when the cat
expired, another cat was
brought to the ashram so that it
could be duly tied during evening
worship.
Centuries later learned treatises
were written by the guru’s
scholarly disciples
on the liturgical significance
of tying up a cat
while worship is performed.
– from “The Song of the Bird,”
by Anthony de Mello, S.J.
