Notes on political hygiene

Many in the city's political community are routinely lax in their political hygiene ("conditions or practices conducive to health").

A few principles that, if commonly practiced by the city's political community, would surely be conducive to its overall political health:

Bring no personal/emotional baggage to the public arena or to political issues. This is probably impossible to put into practice perfectly, since we are an emotional, more or less neurotic species. But we must try, comrades. Politics is not group therapy.

Do your homework. Read whatever documents and/or news accounts on the issue that are available.

Go to as many meetings on the issue as possible. And go with an open mind. Too many seem to have made up their minds before they arrive. Of course we all have our biases. But politics is not a game that you attend to root for the home team. Most issues are complex, and there is almost always more than one valid or useful perspective.

Avoid scorched-earth political tactics. No name-calling, personal insults, questioning of motives, demonizing of opponents. This means that H. Brown shouldn't call Randy Shaw a "lying sack of shit" in his blog. Or call Sheriff Hennessey a "prick." Or Jill Wynns an "asshole," etc. For my part, I'll try to stop calling members of the bicycle community "Bike Nazis." It shouldn't need to be said, but crank phone calls, spitting on those who disagree, and threatening political opponents with a baseball bat are also out of bounds (all of which have been experienced by the Executive Director of the Concourse Authority, presumably by "progressives" who imagine somehow that their thuggish actions have something to do with "saving" Golden Gate Park).