Leadership Part III

I felt like leaving this topic, until something I heard on Focus on the Family recently. The broadcast was not based on politics or leadership. It had to do with living a truthful life in the post modern age. I admit I did not catch the entire broadcast and wish I had. It had a profound effect on my thinking.

The eventual resolution to this topic on leadership is truth and living a truthful life. I have stated in Part I that if we want good leaders we need to demand them. Politicians respond to what they perceive the electorate wants. It is safe to keep promising more goodies. It is safe to tell people that their gas prices are high because of oil profits. Part of living a truthful life is to not expect the government to subsidize your life. I say that as a home owner who loves my interest deduction. There are tax plans that would help in that manner, but that is another entire essay.

It starts early. As a teenager we look for the easy way out. How can I get a good grade on this test and still play baseball until 8:00? (I know I did it). We don't do the hard work, call it due diligence. We go on to college. How can I get a good grade on this exam and still make it downtown for Happy Hour? We get to the job market, how do I get this project done and still go out with my friends?

We look for the easy route. The truthful life does not look for the easy way out.

The true resolution is to look in the mirror. Demand that the leader looking at you live a truthful life. When each and every one of us does that, the Politicians will follow. In the mean time lets do it anyway, your life and mine will be more fulfilling with the truthful life. I know I am looking at things a little different today, and pray that God will bless my efforts to live that life.

Leadership Part II

People want politicians to be leaders correct? I don't think so. I don't think enough people really want our politicians to be leaders. If we wanted it we would have more of them.

Ronald Reagan was a leader. He had vision, he didn't follow the polls, and he brought the people along with him. Reagan made his party the majority party within six years of the end of his term. Lets contrast the last two occupants of the White House since him.

Let me preface by saying I am no fan of Clinton. He is a first class demagogue. In my opinion he made his party worse. He took actions by polls, and lead his party to minority status. Clinton was a first class communicator. With more personal integrity could have been a great leader. By integrity I don't refer to his personal failings with women, I refer to his propensity to act on what would get him more power, or elected. Welfare reform was a prime example. He was personally opposed to it, but signed it after vetoing it three times. Dick Morris told him he had to sign it to get re-elected.

George Bush. Bush gets high marks for vision. He does not follow polls. I agree with him on the war on terror. I disagree with most of his spending. Where he falls down in the area of leadership is communication. I suspect he will not fulfill his potential to make his party the dominant party for a long time. With the current weakness of the Democrats, this could be accomplished. My personal opinion is that he detests the press and avoids talking to them. In this area he could take some lessons from the Gipper. The Washington Press hated Reagan as much as they hate Bush. Reagan used the press to talk to the people. Bush needs to do the same. If he would communicate his visions on a regular basis and not just during national speeches and Press Conferences, his visions will resonate with the people.

Presidents have an easier time being leaders. Congressmen and Senators have to compromise as a job description. This tends to make them look less like leaders. This may also explain why it is difficult for them to become President. A long term Senator has a long track record to be exploited in ads. John Kerry suffered from this in the last election. He worked very hard at appearing moderate. His long track record of left leaning votes made him look wishy-washy. His main weakness, however was that I don't think he thought he could be honest about his left views. In the end he could not have looked less like a leader. He ran away from his record rather than pointing to it as a source of pride. With the war not being very popular during the compaign, he could have won with a consistent message. In my opinion, thank goodness he didn't.

I have changed my mind on Faith based initiatives

I have been a long time proponent of faith based initiatives. The reason is obvious, faith based groups do some of the most good for people who need help. In the back of my mind I have always been afraid of the sacrifices and compromises that they might have to accept to receive the money.

Recently the Catholic Charities of Boston had to choose between the church teaching on homosexuality and Massachusetts law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
(See the wonderful essay on Townhall by Jeff Jacoby)

While the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts is not representative of the rest of the country, this incident does show me that my well found skepticism will eventually take over these initiatives.
Government must be the government of all people. In our present time, possible discrimination of a small minority counts as illegal, whether real or imagined. Faith based groups do to much good, to risk having them become ineffective by accepting the watered down requirements that the Federal Government will eventually give them.

This pains me, as I believed this was a step in the right direction, but I now see government cannot stop its hatred of all things faith, even it good is done by the group that it is regulating out of existence.

Leadership

Voters deserve leaders. No one will disagree with that point. I do disagree with that statement. Voters deserve the leaders that we are willing to demand.

In the nineties I was very much in favor of term limits. I still am in principle. I have changed however in the aspect that we have the capacity to limit the power of politicians today. We don't have to re-elect them. We have to demand leadership though.

Robert Byrd exists to take government money to West Virginia. This man is a former Ku Klux Klan member. Republicans have their own embarrassment. Duke Cunningham is going to jail. The charges against Tom Delay may or may not be trumped up, but the leadership of the party seems to be showing more and more signs of favoring power over doing the right thing.

We say we believe in markets. Somehow that doesn't translate to ideas in politics. Why is this?

1. Established power. Power is established in two political parties. Broad coalitions make up our system. Fear of losing power leads politicians to not lead. Too many times populist ideas pass for representation. Unpopular ideas that might be the best thing for the country are avoided.

2. Sound bite society. Like it or not we live in a sound bite world. Many times a politician only gets 30 seconds to make a point. This does not allow him or her to communicate great visions. This is unfortunate, but should not be a limiting factor. Vision usually takes a back seat to populism because politicians believe that is what gets them elected.

3. Counter intuitive ideas are hard to explain. This doesn't mean they aren't correct. It is counter-intuitive that tax cuts produce higher revenue. It is counter-intuitive that eliminating capital gains taxes would increase tax revenue. It is counter-intuitive (to liberals) that allowing free speech, truly free speech on campuses would create an environment where less hatred exists. All these things are true, at least true enough to create discussion. True leaders accept these discussions. Politicians run from passionate discussions.

How do we reverse this? It is not easy and will take tough action from our electorate. We have to decide if it is worth it.

It's all about choice, or is it?

I was touched by a post to another blogspot blog, forwarded to me by a friend. (see it here.)

We all know the abortion argument. Choice or not. By inventing a right out of whole cloth the Supreme Court took choice away from us. Twentysome years after Roe no reasonable or unreasonable action can be taken by the duly elected representative of the people without the OK of the ruling Elites on the Supreme Court.

If Roe is ever overturned abortion will not become illegal. The control will be returned to the rightful place, with the peoples representatives. At that point those representatives will have to decide where they stand. At that point they will have to be accountable for their actions when they stand before their voters.

The voters will at that point decide through their elections where they stand. While I will still regret that far too many abortions will be performed, at least we won't be aborting the Constitution.

Hollywood and their big day

It's Oscar time again. I admit I go to very few movies. The combination of two small children, and a basic disgust for most of what Hollywood offers would be the reason.

The Execs in Hollywood say they just produce what the viewers want. That might seem vaguely plausible if the numbers bore this out. Every year the highest grossing movies are family movies. The Hollywood execs take this information and create mostly -- 'R' Rated movies.

I have a theory as to why. It has long been my contention that money cannot ever motivate long term. In your job you may work hard to get a bonus. You may say the bonus motivated me. Question after you earn the bonus will you go back to being a slack off? Chances are you weren't a slack off to begin with. Was it the bonus, or was it the accomplishment that motivated you to give it a little extra.

Another question. Can you give your job 20% more effort than you do now? Probably not long term. You may be able to put in some extra hours for an important project, but long term if you can give 20% more you weren't doing your job to begin with, and that being said you probably won't do it even for a hefty raise. The reasons that kept you from doing it before will creep back in.

That being said why does Hollywood make movies that they know won't sell? They do it for THE ACCOMPLISHMENT!!! They see accomplishment as being recognized by their peers at the Oscars, or the Emmy's or Golden Globes. Sure they have to make money, so they will make enough family movies to cover the investors.

Recently though Hollywood is having down year after down year. Why is that? Again I have a theory. They have become so insulated from average people that they can't just go to the well like they used to. I truly believe they have no idea what entertains the average American. They see Family movie as either animated, or sickeningly sweet. These two genres do have their place. News flash to Hollywood, we can stretch a little. We can follow a story. We just don't want to be preached to about your agenda. Gay GOOD! Suicide GOOD!! Drugs and Booze GOOD!!! Republicans BAD!!!!!

Now to turn my gaze to conservatives. There have to be some talented conservative actors and producers and directors out there. Recent movies such as the Chronicles of Narnia and yes the Passion have proved that there is a market for movies with a bent to faith. Yes we would like to see more of that. We also would like to see more family stories. I have not seen 'Because of Winn Dixie' but read wonderful review of it.

We can complain about Hollywood all we want. Now it is time for Conservatives to use the market to change things. It does work. We complain about the mainstream media. It is changing slowly. A man name Rush Limbaugh took a chance on talk radio without guests, talking about political issues. A man named Roger Ailes heads a cable news network that does not have a hard left agenda. Maybe you have heard of it FOXNEWS!! They put their reputations and capital to risk. The rest is history.