Who Will Lead Us?
Who Will Lead Us?
I am a regular talk radio listener and of late, there has been much discussion concerning who is going to rise up and assume a leadership position or positions and give real teeth to the tea party movement. Jerry Doyle has been asking this question and Glen Beck is looking for his 56 “founders” who will root out the corruption in Washington and begin anew according to the principles of the founders of our great nation. As I have listened to the debate it has occurred to me that most people are looking for the solution in the cause of the problem. Don’t most of us believe that Washington caused just about all the problems we are currently dealing with? The housing mess, bank bailouts, the falling dollar, the so called health care crisis, rising unemployment; have not the policies adopted by politicians in Washington caused these problems? We know the answer is yes and we understand the absurdity of expecting Washington to do anything more than mess it up further. We understand that the only real solution is devolving power from the Federal Government and returning to individuals, states and the private sector responsibility for all the things not specifically enumerated in the Constitution for the Federal Government.
So who is going to rise up and fight for those principles in a way that motivates others to do so? Among those in Washington I have heard only one voice in recent years come close and that is Ron Paul’s. The problem is, I don’t think he is the one we are looking for. He is principled and smart but he lacks the charisma and the ability to get a lot of other people to follow his lead. Out of all the people who ran for president, do I wish he was the one in the Oval Office? Sure. But leaders need more than principles and good ideas today. The shy, quiet but brilliant James Madison could never be elected today. It is unfortunate but true.
So where do we look? As unhappy as many tea party supporters are with the Republican Party, many are looking there. I suppose the hope is that they have learned their lesson and will become more conservative. This from the party that nominated John McCain for president even after their losses in 2006. Does anyone seriously think that the Republican party will become the constitutional party? Is any Republican going to propose that we phase out all the social programs the statists have saddled us with over the last hundred years? Are they going to get rid of the Fed, Medicare, the EPA, the Department of Education and all the other garbage that results in statist control over so many things this government was never meant to have its hands in? After the Reagan and Gingrich “revolutions” we still have a bigger and more intrusive government. Republicans may say some of the right things and may nibble around the edges of the federal pie, tweaking this and calling for reductions in that, but none of them have the courage to do anything substantial. Their problem is the same as the Democrat problem. As long as the Democrats are led by the likes of Pelosi and Reed they, as a party, will advance the statist agenda. As long as the Republicans are led by men and women who only believe in slightly smaller government are are afraid of the Democrats and the press, we will end up with a statist agenda.
Back to the original point. Can we really look for leaders to emerge from the very people that put us in this mess in the first place? Almost all the people in Washington and most of those at the state level are “career politicians”, people who have never held a real job except perhaps as a bloodsucking lawyer, people who no longer have any idea about the realities of life and economics, people who live in a bubble created by their own ego. Yet those are the people we keep sending into government. Why? Because we have been conditioned to believe that only by operating within the two party system will people get elected and those two parties have rigged the system in their favor to substantiate that perception. This has ensured the reelection of a majority of the same people and have made seats like Pelosi’s secure for life. As we saw with Ted Kennedy, the only way we get rid of some of these people is to wait for them to get old and die. Did not the founders set the example that stepping down after a time of service was the pattern to be followed? Perhaps it was inconceivable to them that people would make a career out of public service which is why they did not include term limits in the constitution.
It is my belief that only by destroying the monopoly of the two party system is there any hope for making real and lasting change in the direction of this country. The new leaders will not be Democrats or Republicans but independents from the tea party movement itself. People who will rise up and be recognized by the people themselves as leaders. Perhaps it will be organized into a new political party and that is alright, that kind of organization is needed at some point. Will this ensure Democrat control by taking conservatives from the Republican party? It may over the short term. But the reality is that we have been a people without a party for a long time and it is time we represented ourselves. We can yell and protest all we want but neither party has any interest in doing anything other than placating us for a short time and going about the consolidation of their power over the long term. It is time ‘we the people’ took the power from our ‘masters’. It is time we rose up against the aristocracy that exists among our political class and restored common sense to government. It is time to derail the statist agenda and restore liberty to the people.
I am a regular talk radio listener and of late, there has been much discussion concerning who is going to rise up and assume a leadership position or positions and give real teeth to the tea party movement. Jerry Doyle has been asking this question and Glen Beck is looking for his 56 “founders” who will root out the corruption in Washington and begin anew according to the principles of the founders of our great nation. As I have listened to the debate it has occurred to me that most people are looking for the solution in the cause of the problem. Don’t most of us believe that Washington caused just about all the problems we are currently dealing with? The housing mess, bank bailouts, the falling dollar, the so called health care crisis, rising unemployment; have not the policies adopted by politicians in Washington caused these problems? We know the answer is yes and we understand the absurdity of expecting Washington to do anything more than mess it up further. We understand that the only real solution is devolving power from the Federal Government and returning to individuals, states and the private sector responsibility for all the things not specifically enumerated in the Constitution for the Federal Government.
So who is going to rise up and fight for those principles in a way that motivates others to do so? Among those in Washington I have heard only one voice in recent years come close and that is Ron Paul’s. The problem is, I don’t think he is the one we are looking for. He is principled and smart but he lacks the charisma and the ability to get a lot of other people to follow his lead. Out of all the people who ran for president, do I wish he was the one in the Oval Office? Sure. But leaders need more than principles and good ideas today. The shy, quiet but brilliant James Madison could never be elected today. It is unfortunate but true.
So where do we look? As unhappy as many tea party supporters are with the Republican Party, many are looking there. I suppose the hope is that they have learned their lesson and will become more conservative. This from the party that nominated John McCain for president even after their losses in 2006. Does anyone seriously think that the Republican party will become the constitutional party? Is any Republican going to propose that we phase out all the social programs the statists have saddled us with over the last hundred years? Are they going to get rid of the Fed, Medicare, the EPA, the Department of Education and all the other garbage that results in statist control over so many things this government was never meant to have its hands in? After the Reagan and Gingrich “revolutions” we still have a bigger and more intrusive government. Republicans may say some of the right things and may nibble around the edges of the federal pie, tweaking this and calling for reductions in that, but none of them have the courage to do anything substantial. Their problem is the same as the Democrat problem. As long as the Democrats are led by the likes of Pelosi and Reed they, as a party, will advance the statist agenda. As long as the Republicans are led by men and women who only believe in slightly smaller government are are afraid of the Democrats and the press, we will end up with a statist agenda.
Back to the original point. Can we really look for leaders to emerge from the very people that put us in this mess in the first place? Almost all the people in Washington and most of those at the state level are “career politicians”, people who have never held a real job except perhaps as a bloodsucking lawyer, people who no longer have any idea about the realities of life and economics, people who live in a bubble created by their own ego. Yet those are the people we keep sending into government. Why? Because we have been conditioned to believe that only by operating within the two party system will people get elected and those two parties have rigged the system in their favor to substantiate that perception. This has ensured the reelection of a majority of the same people and have made seats like Pelosi’s secure for life. As we saw with Ted Kennedy, the only way we get rid of some of these people is to wait for them to get old and die. Did not the founders set the example that stepping down after a time of service was the pattern to be followed? Perhaps it was inconceivable to them that people would make a career out of public service which is why they did not include term limits in the constitution.
It is my belief that only by destroying the monopoly of the two party system is there any hope for making real and lasting change in the direction of this country. The new leaders will not be Democrats or Republicans but independents from the tea party movement itself. People who will rise up and be recognized by the people themselves as leaders. Perhaps it will be organized into a new political party and that is alright, that kind of organization is needed at some point. Will this ensure Democrat control by taking conservatives from the Republican party? It may over the short term. But the reality is that we have been a people without a party for a long time and it is time we represented ourselves. We can yell and protest all we want but neither party has any interest in doing anything other than placating us for a short time and going about the consolidation of their power over the long term. It is time ‘we the people’ took the power from our ‘masters’. It is time we rose up against the aristocracy that exists among our political class and restored common sense to government. It is time to derail the statist agenda and restore liberty to the people.
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