Should you trust a disloyal person?

Compete or undermine

Let’s build a paradigm – or a model – of Costa Mesa politics. We'll use a college football team.

The head coach has been successful and effective and the alumni respect, and mostly like him. The administration, though, hires a former, relatively unsuccessful head coach, as his defensive assistant. 

His assistant coach is James, “call me Jim” Sanders who had been popular as a head coach but had run the team into near-bankruptcy -- and had a lousy win-loss record as well.

Sneak to the top job

Jim decides he wants the Head Coach’s job so he begins allying with groups of disgruntled players and fans. They are small in number but very vocal.

He finds one group of training drop outs that agrees to write to the collegiate athletic association. They complain of the (imagined) poor and dangerous equipment they were forced to use.

Jim also “leads” a group of anti-football protesters that he encourages to claim that the 50% increase in injuries so far this year is due to poor training and poor conditioning. (The team had three sprains which was 50% more than the two sprains they had last year.) 

They stage a protest and disrupt several faculty meetings. They write to the state college athletics bureau accusing the coach of unsafe training.

Sanders is delighted that inquiries from the bureau and the association are costing the team lots of time and money to study and process. He expects the distractions to make the Head Coach look ineffective even though they have nothing to do with the actual training and management of the team.

Would it work in real life

Did Jim get the Head Coach job? Did he “win” by being a disloyal sneak?

Sometimes folks who undermine their own organization win for a while. But eventually the word gets out – they can't be trusted. They thrive where there are listeners who believe their assertions without question.

Some folks believe what they are told – or that they read. There’s a word for that – naïve.

We were misled -- and wrong 

This writer was that naïve just a little over a year ago; he read a regular blogger’s opinions and pre-judged the now Mayor and Pro Tem. 

However, he researched to confirm his initial impressions and found that he was wrong – very wrong. Both men turned out to be honest, and to exhibit high integrity and values – that is, they do the right thing even when no one can see. That’s pretty much the opposite of the opinion expressed in the blog posts that misled this writer.

Spawned this blog

CMConserve began from the embarrassment of recognizing a political naiveté in spite of a career in a science-related field. We suggest that you learn from the mistakes we made – check the information you read in any blog – including this one. And think about what you’re being told.

Use the paradigm we developed above to look at the current political situation; are there Costa Mesans who undermine their City to embarrass a few officials? Do they “call in the Feds” – or the State – to denigrate the abilities and integrity of the Public Services Director and his staff? Will they force the waste of City money in significant amounts to try to embarrass the Council majority?

The question for Costa Mesa citizens is . . . 

Do you want to believe – and follow – those who prove themselves dishonest and disloyal?