A game played fair must have set rules. Rules govern how people play a game. Rules make the game fair for all its players, create order, govern how the game’s played and determine behaviors of the game’s players.

Rules set as code also regulate government policies in the game of politics. Codes as laws regulate how government offi cials help or harm the people they govern. Playing the political game with valid and wellwritten codes creates better community and social order. The codes fairly written under the U.S. Constitution must be applied to all people collectively, including the government offi cials making the code.

When governing legislative members, such as a city’s council, use their power to pass rules or code, they change the game’s rules that the town’s police and judges use to judge citizens’ activities and behaviors.

Most citizens can recall a law they deemed unjust by design or intent. These laws or rules can create an oppressive authority. On a small scale, this oppressive authority is similar to what has happened in Sulphur Springs’ political game. Previous mayors and council members passed code not using fair and objective rules in its political game. Its governing body at times breached federal and state code, as well as their own city code, to do what they thought best for specific people, but not for all.

Sulphur Springs has a diverse community. As U.S. citizens or legal residents of Sulphur, every person deserves, under U.S., state and local laws, the same chance to seek life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. City government must honor that right by treating every person the same no matter in what nation they were born.

In a true and fair republic, people elect representatives to exercise power for them.Therefore, elected offi cials and people hired by them must answer to the people’s wishes and not their own.

This becomes clear when citizens build a social system using written government rules and regulations fairly written as code that become the law of the land. This fairness in code builds respect for government and alone establishes social order. Moreover, without social order governed by fair statutes or laws, the future of the U.S. society could lead to anarchy, chaos or lawlessness, as historically seen today in nations of North Africa and the Middle East.

To re-establish rules of law and a sense of fairness in Sulphur, both elected and appointed government officials, along with city workers, need to evaluate the city’s current ordinances. The new council’s responsibility then becomes to change any unjust and subjective ordinances and to pass reasonable and objective ordinances, keeping in mind fairness to all people they represent.

More than any game played for amusement or sport, the political game within the U.S. Republic’s political system, a form of government in which people elect representatives to exercise power for them, must be fairly applied to every person in Sulphur Springs. For a republic to stand long on its own virtues, this fairness to every person, place or thing must be strictly exercised so Sulphur’s citizenry might have a chance to stand united even though, at times, residents might have to agree to disagree on certain points of an ordinance’s intention.

Every town or city in the United States must have the rule of law, a code of conduct above which no man or woman can stand. When unfairness happens in local government, such as when the most powerful change the rules of social order without understanding anddisclosing their decisions to their constituents, the rule of law gets foggy. This is where newspaper correspondents and other media outlets must join in and play in the game.

The first responsibility of true media journalists is to its citizens, its intended audience, and not the government. One of the fi rst lessons in any school of journalism is to learn that journalists are the fourth branch of government. They represent the public. Journalists keep the government honest by attending meetings such as the city’s council and write articles to inform the public of government’s laws and regulations, both proposed and passed by majority vote. By supplying the public with information about government activity, media’s correspondents supply voters with the information they need to make a more informed decision during an election.

The responsibility of every U.S. citizen is to vote. Like any game, a person wins or loses by understanding the game’s rules. The same applies to the political game. Voters must understand and keep up with the rules and regulations to know how to play the game, to know how current code can affect them, to know which candidate to vote for during an election.

In the light of Sulphur Springs’ recent political confusion, and for the above reasoning, four articles built on Arkansas Code and Municipal League manuals will follow this introduction to political responsibility. The next article will cover the responsibilities and duties of a mayor, then council members, and then writing fair and objective ordinances. The last article will cover citizen’s responsibility to show up at the polls and vote.

Larry Burge is a freelance writer living in Sulphur Springs who often submits articles to the Westside Eagle Observer.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 10/23/2013