It has been awhile since I articulated my thoughts on these issues. With your indulgence then:
A principle is relatively worthless if it does not inspire defense. If no one will stand up to defend a principle; it follows that the principle is apparently unimportant.
Consider the following principle: community best interests are served by setting and enforcing standards of conduct with respect to driving an automobile. Among them; don’t speed and don’t run red lights.
There are at least three kinds of people. Some people don’t care about the principle one way or the other. Some people will stand up in support of the principle by paying for radar guns and red light cameras. Some will stand up for their interests by buying radar detectors and photo defeating covers for their license plates.
98,000 of our sons and daughters in APS will grow up to be one of those three kinds of adults.
Schools are the perfect place to influence the development of children into adults. We can raise them to embrace personal accountability. Or, we can teach them the value of radar detectors and photo defeating license place covers.
Our choice.
Consider another principle: the best interests of the community are served by raising children who grow into adults who are willing to draw a line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. And who are then willing to hold themselves accountable, honestly accountable for straying across the line.
Standing in diametric opposition to that principle are senior role models in APS who steadfastly refuse to hold themselves honestly accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct.
What ever accountability they cannot dodge with their radar detectors and license plate covers, is handled by their lawyers; who are paid for by tax payer support for the education of their children.
They will ultimately teach children to behave the same way.
Don’t you agree? Or don’t you care?
Next Wednesday, December 6th, at 4pm, at the corner of University Blvd. and Coal Ave; the Leadership of the APS will (not) look into the eyes of their constituents, and for at least the tenth time, they will refuse to hold themselves honestly accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct.
They will do so in diametric opposition to the principle that states: Public servants are honestly accountable to the public; and to a meaningful standard of conduct.
If no one is willing to stand in defense of that principle; it must be unimportant.
I can’t do this alone.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Role modeling and accountability
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2 comments:
I would argue that radar detectors and license plate covers are popular, not because people who use these devices lack personal responsibility but because they see the laws as a joke and the bureaucrats that make them as hypocrites.
While the laws you reference may have been created with standards and safety in mind, it is clear that in many communities it is much more about revenue than safety.
We have leaders telling us that the cameras are there for safety, yet we see evidence that yellow light times were reduced to create more tickets. Studies have been released showing that extending yellow light times leads to less accidents in an intersection, while adding a camera virtually always leads to more accidents and a LESS safe intersection.
How can you say that a person who buys the license plate cover in has no principals or sense of personal responsibility? I think the guy with the license plate cover has a more principled stance than the elected official who turns his back to the facts in order to keep a revenue stream.
By the way, Buy Radar Detectors is a great source for both radar detectors and license plate covers :)
The question is not who is worse, the person who avoids accountability to traffice laws or the official who uses traffic laws unethically.
The question is should public servants be honestly accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct, and are you willing to write a letter to the editor as long as the one you wrote to me.
Thanks for your comment.
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