So What Is the Answer?

How do we get better people as candidates?

Simple, we must be better people. We must raise our own personal standards. We must rediscover what the difference between right and wrong are, and invest ourselves in what is right. We cannot expect our leaders to lead a great country if we are not a great people, because we are the country. And we certainly cannot expect great leaders if we are not ourselves great people, because our leaders reflect who we are.

Don't mistake this as a charge to go fix whatever is wrong with your neighbor or your brother-in-law. No, you have the responsibility for YOU. It is your job to make yourself a better person. Let your neighbor worry about making himself a better person.

Bill Clinton, Al Gore, George Bush, John Kerry, Tom McCain, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, they are us. No more. No less. They represent our hopes, our fears, our generosity, our greed, our nobility, our ignominity.

During the last campaign, a series of ads ran dealing with the question of fetal stem-cell research, and the question was asked about certain representatives, "who are they to decide? They are not doctors or scientists, why should they have a say?"

That does raise an interesting question, who are they to decide?

Well, in short, they ARE the people who we have elected to decide. From my point of view, while I trust my doctor to deal with my health, and while I trust scientists to scratch the surface of the universe and look beneath, neither are well noted for, nor is it their job to look down the road of time in our society and see just where this path leads. That is what our congress is SUPPOSED to do. They are supposed to use their intellect and concern for the future of society and divine where this road will lead. Will it take us to new heights of enlightenment or will it take us into the depths of social slavery? Will it lead to perfect health for all or to the canibalism of the less fortunate for the benenfit of the privileged few.

Take a minute to understand that position. Our leaders are SUPPOSED to be our moral guides, our compass when things are beyond our grasp. That is why one of the most important decisions they have is the decision as to when to go to war. We certainly don't leave that to the Generals or the Admirals. They are charges with winning the war, but not with starting or ending it. (For the same reason doctors are not given the authority to assist suicides nor scientists the decision to clone human beings ... because the outcome of those decisions greatly affect all of society, not just the one person on the verge of death or the verge of duplication.)

Do you trust the leaders we have today to make those decisions? If you weren't able to answer yes, then you have a problem. Because, they ARE going to make those decisions whether you trust them to do it the right way or not. I suggest that you go back to step 1, and work on making yourself a better person. If we all do that, then maybe a few years down the road, we will be worthy of leaders who will be trustworthy to make the right decisions.

Buz

The Part We Don't Like

In the last post, I said that there were two parts to the loss in societal morality ... licentiousness is the part that excites many, and that we, as a society are willing, or maybe even a little eager to live with.

What is the other side of this coin - the part we don't like? It is the decay in our leadership. We are thoroughly disgusted with the fact that our leaders promise us they will do this, and then they do the opposite. It is so ingrained in our society that we have a name for it, a "campaign promise", which is a euphemism for "say anything you want to get elected and then do what you had always planned on doing". (This is part of the reason that negative campaign adds work so well, we ignore what candidates tell us they will do, because we "know" they are lying ... the only thing that gets our attention is that the other person might be even worse than this one.)

How do this relate to the previous post? Simple. We, the American people are inch by inch, foot by foot, and yard by yard, losing our moral footing. As we do, we elect leaders who are like us. The more we want our "freedom" to indulge in personal immorality (sorry, I believe this is now called "pushing the envelope") the more likely we are to avoid candidates who take personal and societal morals seriously. Basically we don't want anyone to tell us that we can't do that which we want to do.

Have you ever heard someone say "don't judge me", "you can't judge me", or "you don't have a right to judge me"? I find it interesting that no one ever says that right after donating $1000 to the Red Cross, or after running into a burning house to save a child. No, they always say that after some shameful act. It would seem to me that they have personally judged what they did and have found it shameful in their own eyes, and then they are pleading for public acceptance to justify their deeds to themselves.

We have more and more members of our society demanding that we ignore or worse, condone, their immorality, and we, because of apathy, comply. Then, in return, we expect others to overlook ours.
So, what's the answer? How do we turn it around?

Buz