A Powerful Sea

Sometimes I reflect on the great, arrogant public entities that have fallen by the wayside, victims of their own hubris. Sure, we think about Napoleon, and then Hitler, invading Russia. But there are numerous other examples right here in our own country. Lyndon Johnson was dissuaded from campaigning for re-election by, among other things, a vocal youth movement. Voting with their feet and their wallets, the People have rejected Detroit, Montgomery Ward, Sears, A & P, not to mention scads of lesser politicians. Right now California is suffering the beginning of a major exodus, motivated by the rules and laws that treat the populace as if they were the ignorant and corrupt ones. When I visit other states I am surprised to hear them remark how Californians are flooding in.

It seems so obvious to those of us on the outside looking in. What happens to those powerful organizations and people? Are they not pained by the disapproval and animosity of the populace? Maybe they are unaware of it. Maybe they don’t care. Do they care when finally the walls tumble around them and the world sees them for what they are? Or do they just move on to the next conquest?

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity.” (Edmund Burke)

Fair enough. Let’s all ask ourselves whether our appetite or our moral judgment motivates us. Is it just too greedy for a neighborhood to want a right of way restored that harms no one and has been supported in a court of law?

If only we knew the reasons for others to oppose this community’s legal access to the roads of Los Angeles County, we could honestly assess the ethics of one position over the other. None of the reasons given so far are remotely believable, but if they are in fact the honest intentions of those who would choke this neighborhood to death, we reject them as insufficiently honorable.

Based on the kind of response I personally experience from people all over Los Angeles County, our major opponents in this little drama are well known and actually—no, I am going to say it—actually despised by an astoundingly wide spectrum of Californians. I wouldn’t wish on anybody the reactions I see, which far surpass my own. It’s one thing to disagree with a person, agency or party politically, but these forces have tapped into something more threatening, more personal. And it’s not just here. The other day I told our story to a lady from Texas. If ever, ever anything I do ever generates such a look of horror and disgust on the face of a respectable person, may I find a deep hole to crawl into.

Well, enough about that. Let’s talk about you. During a social upheaval that helped change American policy, there was a saying:

 “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

And then there’s this:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Mistakenly attributed to Edmund Burke, but a pretty good quote.

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Yup. Briggs Road is not the only community suffering, at least not according to what people are saying to each other. Perhaps each pocket of the County that has issues feels that they are so vastly overpowered that there is nothing they can do. Well, that’s true—as long as each of us floats comfortably, for now, in that vast sea of indifferent citizenry. It doesn’t have to be that way. A sea is powerful when it moves.

There are so many of you! It is heartwarming to know that you are visiting and reading. Let’s hear your reaction to our predicament. And let’s hear your story.