Do What Is Right

With the debt ceiling limit and the supposed “fiscal cliff” approaching, this is one of those times when I wish I could meet with President Obama and say “dude, what are you doing?”  I think a piece of the President’s legacy is at stake in these negotiations, and at issue is whether this President wants to become the man who initiated the end of Social Security as we know it.  Perhaps that last statement is a bit melodramatic, but I honestly believe that once the door to reducing Social Security benefits is opened, it will never be closed again.  It will only get worse, and eventually the whole fund will be privatized thus ending one of the greatest social achievements of 20th century America.

Earlier today, I read some leadership quotes from the late Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and one of them was “Do what is right, not what you think the high headquarters wants or what you think will make you look good.”  Is cutting Social Security the right thing to do?  If it is, I’d like to hear the rationale for that.  Obviously, I don’t think it is right and it appears to me that Mr. Obama is including it in the negotiations as an enticement for Republican support.  He’s valuing making a deal over doing the right thing.  That’s the only way I can explain his obsession with bi-partisanship in negotiations during his first term in office.

At the same time, the President has been skillful in creating a schism in the Republican Party over raising taxes on the wealthy, and that’s something for which he should be lauded.  The question remains though, does a cut in Social Security really need to be part of the deal when it has nothing to do with reducing the deficit?

Back to the leadership quotes from General Schwarzkopf - my sense is that Conservatives will love these quotes, but somehow find a way of ignoring them in their everyday lives.  Take the quote I referred to earlier in which Schwarzkopf said “do what is right.”  How can you justify selfishness and greed as being the right thing to do?  They speak of deficit reduction, but have no interest in taking any meaningful action on it.  If they actually cared about this country, they would invest in its success rather than divesting in its people.  How can improving our infrastructure, roads, high-speed rail, etc. be the wrong thing to do?

I do hope that we are coming into a period in which there is recognition that the Republican Party is bankrupt of ideas, both practical and moral.  Continued exposure on this front needs to occur, yet they are still dangerous.  Republicans control the US House of Representatives and thanks to gerrymandering across the country, may do so for some time.  However, this is not a time to make concessions to irrational shrills for the profit obsessed wealthy.  They’re not interested in making things better, they are only interested in staying in power.  So my request of the President is to expose their fraudulent philosophy, and in the words of General Schwarzkopf, do what is right.  Please.

Conservative Leadership - Oxymoron

If you’re a Twitter user, you may occasionally receive emails with suggestions of other Twitter users to follow.  I recently received such an email and one of the suggestions was @ChrisWidener, a leadership expert who happened to be followed by a good friend of mine as well as several others that I follow.  That all sounded appealing to me and I usually like to follow such people on Twitter, so I clicked on the link to check out his timeline.

One of the first tweets I noticed on his timeline mentioned the word “thoughtful” and Charles Krauthammer in the same sentence.  And he was being serious.  I find Krauthammer’s views to be neanderthal-like which kind of makes sense since he actually looks like a neanderthal.  Regardless of Mr. Krauthammer’s physical and intellectual shortcomings, this timeline inspection process was not going well at all at this point.  I’m not sure anyone can recover from the unintentional comedy of that first tweet, but I kept looking, and let’s just say, it didn’t get any better.  It was at this point that I read Mr. Widener’s full profile description which mentioned his conservative politics.  Things fell into place at this point.  That piece of the description was notably absent from the email I received.

This quick foray into the mind of a conservative got my thinking about leadership and conservatism and whether or not these two terms have much of a relationship.  Mr. Widener’s timeline does have some useful advice on personal responsibility and other success principles with which I wholeheartedly agree, but dispensing such nuggets is not leadership.  It’s education.  Is it possible he’s confusing the two?  To be honest, I didn’t delve any further into Mr. Widener’s work because quite frankly I couldn’t stomach it, but “Leadership Expert” does sound impressive and who doesn’t want to be a leader?  No wonder he has so many followers - just not me.

However, when I think of leadership, I think about having to deal with real life situations and getting a group of people through it in such a way that the whole benefits or at least comes out better for it.  Leadership addresses reality while modern day conservatism does its utmost to deny it.  At Conservatism's core is complete self-interest and when you look at who stands to benefit the most from the current conservative platform, you see pure greed from the nation’s most wealthy 2%.  They have no interest in leadership, only power.  They serve themselves and subject the rest of the population to a kind of social darwinism that seems completely ironic given the Republican Party’s total reluctance to believe in evolution.

When I consider the idea of conservative leadership, I struggle to think of even one person on the Right whom I would consider to be a great leader.  Leaders do the right thing, not what’s only in their self interest.  And when I refer to the “right thing”, I mean acting ethically.  Character traits such as respect, compassion, honesty, integrity, fairness, kindness are just a sampling of what great leaders actively display on a daily basis.  Name one conservative who demonstrates these traits - I can’t.

Responsibility

I find it somewhat humorous that Conservatives, who are always preaching personal responsibility, can do nothing but complain, whine and make excuses for why election results didn't go in their favor.  Isn't that behavior the exact opposite of what responsibility means?  Uh, yeah, it is.

In sports, we laugh and sometimes pity athletes who talk this way.  I suppose we should do that in politics as well.  Let's take the case of Mitt Romney.  Suggesting that he lost the election because Obama gave gifts to various groups of people proves beyond a doubt why he wasn't qualified to be President of the United States.  He didn't lose because of anything he did.  No.  Obama cheated and gave stuff to people so they would vote for him.

Please Mitt Romney, just go away and never enter our lives again.  If you were truly worthy of being President, you would take responsibility for your loss.  Own it like the man your followers thought you should be like.  Instead, you acted like the entitled little rich brat that many of us thought you were.

Two Questions to Help the Undecided Voter

While there are many complex and nuanced issues to consider in this election, I think there are two simple questions that can assist voters in selecting a Presidential candidate on Election Day.

1. Is money the most important thing in your life?
2. Do you make more than $200,000 per year?

If you answered "yes" to both of these questions, then Mitt Romney is your man.  Feel good about casting that ballot for him and enjoying lower taxes for the next 4 years, while the rest of the country continues to descend in to despair.  If you didn't answer "yes" to both questions, but are leaning toward Mr. Romney, then you are in all likelihood voting against your own interests.  Romney's policies only benefit people who answer "yes" to the above questions.

One caveat on the above - an Obama victory in November will very likely result in a "Grand Bargain" on Social Security and Medicate in 2013.  This is disturbing.  Ironically, a Romney victory might actually save Social Security and Medicare from cuts since Democrats would likely not cooperate with the Republicans effort to cut these earned benefits programs.

Geniuses

Jack Welch thinks the latest jobs report was cooked, and Donald Trump agrees with him.  Trump also thinks that the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez needs drugs to play better.  Why do we care what these people think?

Making money is a skill and there is no doubt that men like Welch and Trump are geniuses at it.  Their financial intelligence far exceeds that of the average person.  Intelligence in everything else?  Perhaps not so much.  Yet because our society worships money to such an extreme degree, people like Welch and Trump are sought after to provide their thoughts on a whole host of topics of which they know nothing.  We somehow equate financial genius with just pure genius.

To make my point, let's take the case of another skilled genius - Alex Rodriguez.  In baseball, A-Rod is one of the best players ever.  His baseball IQ is way above the average person's.  He has many adoring fans (as well as detractors).  Why aren't we asking him what he thinks of the jobs report?  Or the recent Presidential debate?  Is it that we recognize that baseball genius doesn't qualify him as an expert on everything else going on in the world?

Bottom line - I don't give a shit what Jack Welch and Donald Trump think.

Good People

I know that many of the people who are supporting Mitt Romney in the upcoming Presidential election are good people who want the best for their country.  They want America to be strong economically and a country they can be proud of on the international stage.  But when will these same people realize that today’s GOP has no interest in America?  For as much as conservatives use the idea of America to emotionally attach themselves to voters, their policies and proposals serve a small group of people who worship profit.  And that group of people doesn’t need an economy that serves all Americans.  It only needs one that serves them, and that’s the one we live in today; an economy in which large multi-national corporations have tons of cash and are generally prospering while many Americans struggle financially.

What would be their motivation to change the current conditions?  Answer:  there is none.  As long as corporations and the rich in this country can make money in this economic climate, there will be no improvement. In fact, things will only continue to get worse.  If Republican policies championed by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are put in place, deficit hysteria will drive our economy into the ground.  The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, and economic and social mobility will continue to get worse.  Jobs will be lost here at home, but corporations will continue to prosper with their global markets and the fact that our own society has become consumption addicted.  We want gadgets and things even when we can’t afford them, and the marketing of these products convinces us that we need them.

There really isn’t a single good thing that Mitt Romney will do for the actual benefit of this country, but when will the average moderate Republican wake up and realize that?  A Romney presidency could make things very ugly in the next several years.  If it happens, settle back and watch the rich get richer at the expense of those who don’t have enough money to buy politicians.