Controlling people are people who are riddled with fear.
After all, if they don't run the world, who will?
Oh, of course, parents have to be controlling; it benefits children. And coaches of sports teams, otherwise the exercise is pointless. The command function in the military is necessary.
Talking about ordinary folks and ordinary life here.
Suppose, exempli gratia, that the Largo City Commission had the following rules in regard to the citizen comments portion of their meetings.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to grant that sort of trust, comity, respect and civility to the citizens to the same degree that the mugwumps sitting up there on the dais emphatically insist on receiving from the public?
What in the name of tarnation could be wrong in trusting people?
If you trust someone, dollars to doughnuts that person will act trustworthy.
The fact is that their holinesses do not want to hear from the public. That was revealed at a June 6 meeting when the specter arose of a certain procedure getting the public involved.
Oh, heaven save us! There were at least six quaking souls among the commission at the very thought of the idea.
What goes on in Largo among the elected hicogolorums is extended discussions on how to handle citizen comments. There are rules on rules. Half-baked opinions come from members of the commission on Roberts Rules of Order and other arcane laws, regulations and rules laid down by ancient Danes in the Skaggerak eons ago.
The city's lawyer sits there bemused, not knowing what to do because his master cannot signal him without giving away the whole show.
It is all so much bushwah.
The base canard has grown (the Big Paper was snookered and drawn in on it, believing it to be true) that Largo commission meetings experience a squad of thugs, antediluvian creatures, and folks on the border of criminality who come to the people's podium and hurl abuse, bad words, fighting words, overripe tomatoes and rotten eggs at the poor souls trapped up there on the podium (sucking down water and other delights the citizens are not allowed to carry into the commission chambers).
'T'aint so.
There is one individual who carries on a little, debasing himself with silly diatribes. No one takes him seriously.
There is another who is a sort of clown who uses language that comes close to base insult.
But that is about it.
More often, it is a gentleman like John Atanasio or Geoff Moakley or Curtis Holmes (who gets intense but is always unfailingly polite). Those are the regulars.
Very often people who make one appearance a year show up. Sometimes it is someone who has a neighborhood problem and is seeking redress at the king's bench (so to speak).
Yeah, there is a lot of fear up there on that commission dais.
There are theories on the reasons why, which we will not go into in today's instructive lecture. But you know how you can't bring up certain things when the whole extended family is gathered around the groaning board on Thanksgiving? (You get the idea, hey?)
A person trusting in the goodness of her and his fellows need not have fear and consequently need not exercise iron control.
The only thing worse than the control is the patronizing language addressed to citizens.
Hey, everybody is not looking for a handout, so don't handle them like a welfare case. Okay?