Civic responsibility - american gov blog post

This week for my government class I wrote a paper on what LDS leaders have said about civic responsibility, and then I read a chapter about the U.S. reform movement in the 1830s, and then we watched Amazing Grace (2006) in class. So, when I sat down in class to watch the movie it occurred to me that perhaps I should actually connect all of this learning to reality and actually do something about it. I started thinking about the fact that on saturday morning there is a community meeting to discuss the partial bulldozing of Rock Canyon - something I very much care about preventing - and that if I go along with my wilderness writing class to the desert this weekend, I won't be here. At this point it occurred to me that if I want to act on what I've learned and take part in civic government, and if I really care about Rock Canyon, that meeting might be a good reason not to go to the desert. I don't have illusions that my going to the meeting will significantly impact what will happen to the canyon, and I realize that the man attempting to bulldoze probably won't get to. However, I think this meeting is what I want to be spending my time on this saturday morning. Hopefully I will learn a lot about the process of local government from both the people running the meeting and  those attending. I guess what I'm thinking is best expressed by this quote (that I used in my paper today) from Albert E. Bowens - "All our memorials will be idle fruitless ceremonies unless they have the effect of focusing our attention upon the value of our institutions which were established to perpetuate the liberties for which the Revolutionary patriots fought and died, and of inspiring us with the will to preserve them."