[Foundation-l] Reflections on the recent debates

[Mike Godwin]

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 12:57 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Mayor of Chicago, Richard J. Daley:
>
> "The policeman isn't there to create disorder;
> the policeman is there to preserve disorder."
>
>
> Sorry, couldn't resist. ;-D
>


I've always loved that quote. Me, I want neither to create disorder nor to
preserve disorder. It's not the nature of disorder to need creating or
preserving.

Creating and preserving order is a much harder challenge. Obviously,
creativity needs freedom and diversity, but it also needs rules. Striking
the right balance between freedom and rules is especially hard, but if the
recent debate leads people to reflecting on what a better balance is, that's
a good result, even if people remain (understandably) unhappy with certain
particular actions that gave rise to the debate.

I know a lot of people suppose that the attack from Fox is the trigger for
discussion of review of Commons policy, but in fact Commons policy has been
subject to ongoing review and discussion for some time now, as FloNight has
mentioned. Fox's maliciousness, and Jimmy's unilateral response to it, may
have added some urgency to the discussion, but I think the discussion needs
to happen.


--Mike