Personally, I hate being technically correct.

Legally, I was not culpable when I took Ward 2 At-Large Councilman Lamont Noel at his word when he said the vote to name a new mayor pro tem was illegal.

But I still put something false out there. I took him at his word — I should have double checked the state law he was referencing and reported accordingly. Even so, I was, technically, legally, not in the wrong. He was! I was only writing down what he said. Imagine me saying that with a thick pair of glasses and a too-tight bowtie.

But here’s the counterpoint. Particulars aside, Noel’s point was that the vote to unseat Mayor Pro Tem Garry Daeke was wrong and improper. Ultimately, that’s what matters.

It reminds me of what went down at the White House last week or thereabout. Old Donny confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on what he called a genocide of white folks in the southernmost African country. He also showed him a video of what he said were the burial sites of white farmers slain in nighttime raids.

Is there a genocide going on in South Africa? No. Were those crosses really the burial site of white farmers? Also no.

The point is, there is no genocide, but there is no shortage of racially motivated violence against white farmers. The state can, if it deems necessary, seize their farmland with no recourse.

We can say that’s all justified for the sins of apartheid, but that doesn’t make it untrue.

And the crosses didn’t mark the literal site where those farmers were buried, but they were placed there to honor them.

Those points, so far, the media has not interacted with. And that’s how you know they have political motivations. Because when a politician makes a misstep, their opponents can seize upon it and ignore any other point being made. Poof! Political smoke and mirrors.

An unbiased body would, at the very least, try to see both sides, particulars notwithstanding. I think we’ve done a good job of that.

Point is, I hate making mistakes. So, please let me know if I’ve made one.

Political games and machinations give a man a headache. I had a nice palette cleanser in the form of the American Legion’s Memorial Day ceremony. There was some good language on how we ought to build a country worthy of our service members’ sacrifices.

My great-grandfather — I’m the third; he’s the first — fought in World War II. Dropped in behind enemy lines before D-Day; fought across France until the Nazis killed him in Foy.

I try to imagine what he must have been feeling. That’s pretty difficult.

I once saw a video of an MG42 firing off a belt. Bullets came out loud and fast. On D-Day, our boys on the beaches had to run headlong across Norman beaches, dozens of those machine guns all firing till their barrels glowed red-hot.

What the hell kind of man could do that? What does it take to step off those boats into near-certain death?

It suddenly makes all this political posturing lose its weight, as if it had any to begin with.

Getting down in the dirt seems to be necessary to run things in the way they need to be, it would seem. It feels as though we’re failing to build that kind of nation when we get bogged down in ultimately meaningless struggles. But that’s the way things are run. Maybe they need to be run that way, for whatever reason.

We’re stuck between the real and the ideal. That’s why we need to meditate on those ideals, I suppose.

It’s like going to church after a raucous Saturday. We need to recommit ourselves to our virtues. To the vision of what we ought to be.

If we don’t, what do we become?