After a decade of reasonably regular publication of political commentary, I'm growing weary of rhetorical tricks. No party or faction has a claim to purity, in this regard. Indeed, no individual can claim never to have slipped into the loping, dramatic stride of an argument that emphasizes the attractive swing of the arm over the direction in which the argument is headed, myself included.

Put differently, too often disputes about public policy hinge more on which side can use prettier words than which side better captures the will of the public, let alone adhering more closely to the truth. And in our political discourse, among the most beautiful and powerful words is "democracy."

So we read retired Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Stephen Fortunato proclaiming that a direct vote of the people on the issue of same-sex marriage "is a ploy to subvert the orderly workings of our democratic processes," which he describes as legislators' sitting as moral and intellectual judges, only subsequently held to account by voters. On a completely separate issue, we read the contrasting view of former Tiverton Town Councilor Brian Medeiros that an ordinance capping the town's budget increase at 2.5% would represent a usurpation by the Town Council of "rights reserved solely for the people of Tiverton."

"Even if you think this tax cap is a good idea, remember that if this Council can impose its will on the people at the Financial Town Meeting (FTM), a future Council could just as easily rescind the cap and even require at least a 2.5% annual budget increase. If the people ever choose to give the Council budget and taxing authority, that's their right. But as people around the world are fighting their governments for their rights, it's wrong in every way for our elected officials to take our rights away."

It bears mentioning that, back when Medeiros had the opportunity as councilor to suggest an alternative to the FTM, his proposal had much more in common with Fortunato's view: Handing the final levy decision to the Town Council, with a process for the people subsequently to object and change the outcome.

That's a side debate, though. The particulars of these battles quickly devolve into varying interpretations of law and memory, and spats about the past are less productive than investigations of legality. Consider, for one, that the power that the town charter specifically places in the FTM's hands is to order "any tax which lawfully may be ordered." It is at least plausible to claim that an ordinance from the council can set the conditions of what is "lawful," and the process of determining whether and in what degree that is appropriate is part of democracy. Indeed, all of these mechanisms are intrinsic to the "democratic process."

To understand this, one need only state bluntly the upshot Medeiros's complaint: That elected officials are attempting to thwart democracy. Elected officials. Such a charge can only be accurate, it seems to me, where the people that the public has selected are conspiring to place authority not in the voters' hands, not even in their own hands, but in the hands of people or processes even farther from the reach of the voting booth. Federal bureaucracies come to mind.

Medeiros quips that the 2.5% proposal seeks to "'protect' taxpayers, apparently from themselves," but in doing so, he obscures the simple fact that the electorate at a financial town meeting is a mere subset of the voting public, and that the latter is a much larger group that could choose rationally, through its elected officials, to restrain the former. One begins to suspect that those who invoke the name of democracy in this way really mean that their odds of political success are better on one particular level of democracy.

Personally, I'd like to see limits to annual tax increases written into the Town Charter, but at least one financial town meeting will run its course before that is possible, and I'd like as much protection as the broader democracy that elected the current Town Council is able to provide. The melodrama of comparing Councilor David Nelson's proposed ordinance to the dictatorships that have recently sparked political unrest in Northern Africa, as Medeiros does, hardly suits the occasion and smacks of parochial fanaticism.

At the end of the day, an ordinance is just a bunch of words, and the process exists for a determined FTM to brush it aside. For the Town Council's decree to hold, the meeting's moderator would have to rule contrary appropriations out of order, and further, his ruling would have survive an appeal, which is just another vote of the people.  In other words, at the financial town meeting, fifty percent plus one - that is, the people - can decide that the Town Council has overstepped its boundaries.

What would happen after such a vote succeeded is an interesting question, but it seems likely that the Town Council would have to sue the people of the town in order to enforce its ordinance, and it's very difficult to imagine politicians doing such a thing in the absence of clear and overwhelming evidence that the larger group of voters would continue to support them, come the next election. That's democracy, and the most sure means of thwarting it is to exaggerate banal processes into cosmic battles of High Principle.

Elected officials should not lie and say that they believe something follows the rules merely in the hopes that nobody will notice that it does not. By the same token, however, it is their duty to interpret the rules for themselves and to apply them as they believe The People would prefer.