Why Our Elected Leaders Fail Us

The list of items that the newly elected Democrats want to investigate Trump seems endless. It's not that Trump should be immune to investigations, that is not the issue here. The issue is that the newly elected Democrats were elected to either pass or reject new legislation. They were elected to exercise a personal vendetta against Trump--and I am writing this as one who strongly opposes Trump.

Of course, the Republicans are no different. Once Obama was elected President, Mitch McConnell's life goal, as well as that of many other Republicans, became to prevent Obama's reelection. And once Trump became President, the stated goal of the Republicans in power was to undo almost everything, if not everything Obama instituted--especially Obamacare.

At this point, it should not be hard to see why our government doesn't work anymore. Our two major political parties are too busy exercising vendettas against each other while employing all-or-nothing thinking. If the Republicans had listed some of Obama's accomplishments as being worthy of preserving or if the Democrats had stated that they were going to investigate only one or two aspects of Trump and his Presidency, then they would be behaving reasonably; but that is not the case.

There are two characteristics of the vendetta thinking exercised by both Republicans and Democrats that disqualify them from legitimately representing the people. the first characteristic is that too many members of both sides have revenge as their first priority. They want to do all that they can to punish their rivals. But when their revals represent so many of America's people, how can they pursue their attack mode posture toward their revals while still representing the people who elected them?

Second, by attacking or planning to attack as many agenda items or personal characteristics as possible, those representatives who do so show that they are exercising all-or-nothing thinking patterns. What is wrong with all-or-nothing thinking? According to one article, the following occurs (click here for the source): 

All-or-nothing thinking is problematic in many ways. It’s limiting and “creates extreme and impossible expectations.”

But worse than that, such thinking is often classified as a cognitive disorder that can contribute to mood disorders and unhealthy behavior. In the end, such thinking distorts reality more often than not (click here and there). Do we really want elected officials who embrace, sometimes passionately, harmful thinking patterns that start to separate its practitioners from reality? Isn't having a President who uses that type of thinking bad enough for our nation? And by imitating what one's opponent does, hasn't one become one's opponent? Such is a legitimate question to ask of both the newly elected Democrats as well and President Trump and his allies.

Should the Democrats spend more time in trying to investigate Trump than they do on passing needed legislation, then they have shown themselves to be no different than the Republicans' whose life goal was to prevent Obama from serving 2 terms as President. And thus another difference between the Republicans and the Democrats fades of into the sunset.

Of course we should note that holding to a 2-Party system fosters such thinking. With having candidates from only two parties, all-or-nothing thinking is reinforced in the minds of Americans. For what the 2-party system forces on the voters is the idea that one must choose between 2 candidates, between the them and not them candidates. Such lays the groundwork for voters to embrace all-or-nothing thinking. And with that comes a greater and greater disconnect for all of the middle ground that often resides between our two choices.

Our political landscape should be declared a federal disaster area. Elections show that, with our limited choices, we keep descending into the depths of ignorance that all-or-nothing thinking fosters. And we citizens have no monopoly on those cognitive problems. Our political leaders willingly show that they have a capacity to passionately embrace a cognitive disorder that limits our thinking, brings mood disorders, and contributes to some of us losing touch with reality.

If the newly elected Democrats want to bring a positive change to our nation's current course of direction, then must limit the number and depth of investigations planned for President Trump in order to work on legislation that is beneficial to the most number of Americans. Nothing else will do.





 

How Can One Interfere With A Ghost?

The latest news that is fit to print is about how we are taking umbrage with the revelation that Russia interfered with our nation's democracy. How dare someone infringes on our monopoly? After all, infringing on the democracies of other nations has been copyrighted by the US and other nations are allowed to do the same only if they receive explicit written permission from our government.



But what is obscured because it is not fit to print is the fact that we don't need a foreign power to interfere in our affairs for our democracy to be threatened. Certainly the MSM (a.k.a., the mainstream media) does not tell us this. Why? It is because their owners don't want their secrets to be revealed. Here we should note a study that was reported on by the BBC basically said that we no longer have a democracy. Instead, what we have is oligarchy, which is the rule of the rich (click here).

Why do we no longer have a democracy? The first reason is that we define democracy exclusively in concrete terms. Democracy, for most of us, consists of voting every x number of years for leaders whom we hope to ignore until the next election. The fact that we are voting for the right leaders has already hurt our chances at achieving a democracy. For what leaders want to do is to lead and to do that they must control the rest of us in some way, shape, or form. 

If democracy means that the people rule, then looking for leaders to vote for sabotages our efforts to achieve a democracy. It's not that our elected officials are never called to lead, it is that the more power is concentrated into a smaller and smaller group of people such as it is when we elect leaders, the less the people are ruling and thus the weaker the democracy. Rather than looking for the right leaders who will save us by their decision making prowess, we need people who can lead but who listen to us more than they lead. And that requires that we spend more time to become better informed on the issues and spend less of our spare time entertaining ourselves into submission.

What we have now is basically a democracy once removed. It is a democracy for those with wealth since our elected officials pay far more attention to the welfare and concerns of the wealthy than they do to us. That was the point of the previously cited article on how the US is now an oligarchy. Those with wealth have more power over the voting practices of our elected officials than the general population does. And what some believe is that the more our government serves those with wealth, then those with wealth will serve the rest of us. That is why I call our form of government a democracy once removed.

There is another reason why we don't have a democracy. That reason is, in a different way than just stated, because we are too concrete in our definition of a democracy. For us, a democracy is voting every x number of years. But if we look at the origin of the word, we find that democracy has an abstract meaning that isn't necessarily guaranteed by the use of elections. The original meaning of the word 'democracy' is that the people rule. And what is implied here is a certain egalitarian status for all people. Here we can thank Jeff Halper, an Israeli activist for Palestinian rights, for clarifying what it means for the people to rule. Just as we don't have a democracy when one economic class gains control over the government, we also don't have a democracy when one ethnic group tries to gain control over the government. And that is true whether that ethnic group is defined by race, language, national origin, or religion (see pg 74 of An Israeli In Palestine). Our problem today is not with victimhood and identity politics as some contend. Rather, our problem is with tribalism and the yearning to control and dominate all others rather than to share with and protect others. And that problem is not just because of the actions of a specific economic class or ethnos, it also because of those from different ideologies and political parties. Each group that is contending to gain control over our nation is exhibiting the arrogance Martin Luther King Jr. once attributed to the West when he was speaking against the Vietnam War (click here):

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

Each group that seeks to dominate whether they be a religious group, a political party, an ideological group, or a race is exhibiting the arrogance King complained about.

In reality, Russia could not harm our democracy because it simply no longer exist. In fact,  our democracy might never have existed. That doesn't mean that Russia didn't interfere with our elections. But it does mean that the political system with which Russia interfered was not a democracy in the first place.


 

What One Word Would You Associate With Democracy?

It can be tough writing a new blogpost each week. That is because there is a tension between the desire to write something new  and the perception that some ideas still need to be repeated.

Observing our current process of electing a President, it seems that the need to repeat a theme has won out over the desire to write about something new. In fact, we might want to look at how candidates campaign for the office of President as a microcosm for America's role in the world and America's role in the world as a macrocosm for how candidates run their campaigns. It is all about competition and conquering. Basically, both running for President and trying to maintain a global hegemony is a king-of-the-hill battle. The pressures from that struggle can cause people to do anything from making simple mistakes to doing what is unethical and even immoral. But to the winner goes not only the spoils, but usually immunity for any violation of the rules.

We should note that neither of the two major parties have a monopoly on the vice required to win. But that is not how they talk in conversations either between the two parties or within the 2 parties during the primaries. To hear how candidates and their respective political parties speak to and against each other, it is suggested that each candidate believes that they must win so as to block the other candidates from having any access to power or any influence on the new government. Thus, our elections have become contests where each person and/or party seek to win to rule over all others.

With that thought in mind, answer the following question: What is the first term you think of when you hear the word 'democracy'? For many, the first word or term would be 'vote' or 'voting.' The problem with thinking of this word first when we hear the word 'democracy' is that there are many nations in which people can vote and yet they do not live in a democracy. The former USSR was such an example from yesteryear while Iran could easily provide an up-to-date similar example. What this simply means is that we can have voting without having a democracy, but we can't have democracy without voting.

A term that antagonists of democracy often associate with the word is 'mob rule.' Such strongly suggests negative characteristics to democracy's participants. And we should note that such a word association is made by conservatives who believe in elite-centered rule provided that the right elites are in control. But lest we think that conservatives have a monopoly on the association between mob rule and democracy, many liberal Democrats make the same association. The differences between the two groups become which elites gain power as well as the fact that Conservatives are more honest and open regarding their feelings about Democracy.

Others might first think about the word 'equality' when they hear the word democracy. That is because democracy does carry with it the idea that there exists a certain degree of equality between democracy's participants such as is seen in one-man, one-vote. But what kind of equality exists is somewhat of an unknown. Are we referring to economic equality or political equality? In addition, we might want to ask how does equality result from the existence of Democracy.

The word that now first comes to my mind when I hear the word 'democracy' is the word 'sharing.' We always have the issue of how the group(s) we reside in and will share society with others. Will we share society with others as equals or will we seek or have forced on us some hierarchical order? To share society with others as equals means that regardless of whether the numbers allow our group(s) to gain control, we will exercise care so that neither we or others will dominate any particular legitimate group in society. We do this by sharing power rather than trying to monopolize it and pretend to use it paternalistically.

Such sharing is what fasciliates equality in a democracy. But not only that, without this sharing, voting can easily result in the self-delusion that one lives in a democracy. 

So how should the ties between sharing and democracy apply to our elections? Yes, there will be a certain effort to compete to win. But what is at stake and what kind of contest we could participate in is not power as it would be in a king-of-the-hill battle, but the extended opportunities to converse and cooperate with others as we try to ensure that each group has an equal place in society especially concerning what laws are passed.

We currently don't have that kind of approach to our elections just as our nation does not have that kind of approach to its place in the world. Rather, just as our nation seeks by hook or by crook to dominate others, so we see those running for elected offices do the same so that they can be part of some domination over others during their terms in office. This competition and the need to conquer shows that our Free Market values influence our moral values more than Democracy does. And thus, this competition and the need to conquer shows that we have a greater love for money than we do to govern ourselves in ways that require that we cooperate with others--others being those from different groups.

It is the conjunction of sharing power and voting that makes a democracy. For if we have a legitimate concern for sharing power, we will insist on fair elections. And voting without sharing simply meets the conditions for a coming tyranny practiced by some individual or group. 

So as we listen to the candidates campaign, how many of them are making speeches about sharing power with those from other groups in order to ensure a properly functioning democracy? How many times has either Sanders scapegoated the 1% or Clinton denounced pro-life advocates? How many times has Trump shown disdain for those from other ideologies, nationalities, or those who do not fit in with his idea of what normal should be? And how many times has Cruz expressed concern for equal rights for those in the LGBT community or any concern for the Palestinians? The answers to these questions tell us about the level of commitment each of these candidates have to Democracy.

Without sharing, we are simply fooling ourselves into believing that we have a democracy. In fact, one recent study shows that because government decision making so vastly controlled by those with wealth, that what we have today is an oligarchy, not a democracy. And yet, we change our democracy so that the 99% are in control and we leave out the 1%, we will still fail to have a full democracy.

The above tells us that the way to beat the oppression caused by those who seek to hoard power is to invite them to share power rather than to give up all power.

Without sharing, we will continue our seemingly endless king-of-the-hill battle and we will do that at both home and abroad. And though that might seem like a major inconvenience and uncomfortable state of affairs at home, seeking to rule others in the world eventually leads a nation to war and/or terrorism.

Mr. President, What Big Ears You Have

I'm afraid that our nation's only hope no longer rests at all in its elections, but rests in an unprecedented event that would occur between election day in 2016 and Inauguration Day of 2017. Sometime between those two days we need a big bad wolf to commandeer the White House and to lay waiting in the Lincoln Bedroom, disguised as President Obama of course, for the next President elect to arrive. And when that person arrives and gets around to asking the wolf what big ears he has. The wolf can answer: 'The better to hear everyone with.' And with that, the big bad wolf can lock the President elect up with Obama and take over the President's elect 4 year term. And after those 4 years, we can decide on whether we should either keep the big bad wolf as President or let Obama and the President elect come out of the closet.

The moral of this story is that the qualities we most need in our next President and all other elected officials is that of wanting and being able to listen. But here, I am not just referring to having a President putting up with listening to us people moan and groan. Included with that is for the next President to listen to us as we provide at least half of the solutions to our nation's problems.

See, every election we say we want change. We say that we want our nation back. But it beats the heck out of us to figure out who has our nation in the first place and we are too ignorant of history to really know who had it in the first place. And while saying we want change, we still vote in the 2 major parties despite their track record and their dependence on others who are monetarily well-endowed. 

We also say that we want America to be great again. But at what point in our history has America been great without relying significantly on exploiting others? Do we really want to exploit more people to be great when we are in denial of those whom we have already abused and taken advantage of? So how can anyone take us seriously when we say the things we do? 

If our nation was really honest with itself, we would admit the following about what we want with every election. We want to elect officials whom we can ignore until the next election.  For some of us that means that we want our elected officials do not get in the way of our own pursuits in life, many of which are trivial. For others of us it means that we want our elected officials to make it look like they are helping those whom we don't want to touch. 

Of course there are those who want to get as much out of the government as they can. The worst offenders here are the financial elites. They don't fit the voters described above because they don't ignore those whose elections they've paid for. And so we vote for authoritarians to get our wish. Why authoritarians? Because it takes authoritarians to run government without our input and guidance. And if you look at the current field, it is, without exception, filled with authoritarians.

The idea of greater citizen participation was one of the two main messages of Occupy Wall Street (OWS). Certainly OWS wanted to draw attention to the misdeeds of the 1%. But just as much if not more than that was the idea that we wanted more citizens to take an active role in our democracy noting here that democracy is more than just voting every x number of years. The reduction of democracy to just voting is probably one of the biggest reasons why we have the kind of government we have now and that is regardless of the political party in power.

So what we really need from any future President is that he/she would demand that we, the citizens, persistently participate in government in ways in addition to voting. Those candidates who do not call on us to do so are mere authoritarians who are, because of the complexity of the job, ill-equiped to approach the job that way. 

And if we want government to change, we have to change ourselves first. We can no longer vote for the candidates whom we think we can ignore until the next election. We must demand that our next President, as well as all of our other elected officials, include us not just in the identification of problems, but in the finding of solutions. To not change to that means that we could confine ourselves to our own individual pursuits, but it also includes living in a nation on the decline led by a government that exists to serve itself. And that means that eventually, we will not the choices we have today.

Are Today's Leaders The Solution Or The Problem

Our country has a new enemy now: ISIS. Certainly this group is on friendly terms with evil as it passionately embraces brutality. And we are being told that this group poses an immediate threat to our country and thus what is required from our elected officials is leadership.

But the dangers posed by ISIS is not the only situation that has us looking for leadership from our elected officials. We have internal problems that cause us to to do the same. And we have called our own nation the leader of the free world. And such a leader needs its own leader. So when we go to elect a new President in 2016, we will be seeking a new leader, a leader's leader.

Now the opposite of the above leadership mentality was the working ethic of Occupy Wall Street (OWS). That ethic was a paradox resulting from putting in conjunction the statement, 'we are all leaders,' with statement, 'we have no leaders.' And though OWS was not as pure in working this paradox as it claimed, it provided significant steps in a different direction. The opposite of relying on leaders is leading oneself or being self-governed. And this self-leadership isn't a call to a radical libertarianism; rather, it is a call to group self-governance.

So the greatest question each nation in the world faces today is: Will we continue with the status quo of relying on leaders who are chosen based on the solutions they propose and the promises they pledge to keep, or will we discontinue our laissez-faire relationship with government--a relationship exhibited in the voting ethic of trying to elect a government we can ignore until the next election-- by looking to lead ourselves.

Of course the next question becomes, how can we lead ourselves while voting for elected officials? To become self-governed, wouldn't we have to completely eliminate our representative form of government? This blog will answer the latter question later. First we need to take a look at the relationship between being free and having leaders.

It's odd that not many Americans have questioned America's claim to be the leader of the Free World. Not many of us have asked the two important questions that would cause us to examine this rather self-flattering claim we make. The two question not being asked are:

1. How can those who are under the leadership of someone else be free?
2. Why do those who are free need to be led?

See, we Americans don't feel infringed on by America's "leadership" in the world. That is because we are the ones in charge--or to be more precise, the government we elect is the group giving the orders. But the question here becomes: How do the people from the different countries in the "Free World" perceive our leadership. For if they feel infringed on or if they have become passive and wait for orders to follow, they are no longer free. And if America attempts to use coercion to get other countries to fall in line, then those other countries that submit are not free

The second question basically infers the same concept but from a different perspective. If I, or whatever group I am in, am free, then why do I need a leader telling me what to do? We are told that if we follow orders, we have a better chance at becoming prosperous and being secure. So we should note here that prosperity and security are the carrots being dangled for why I or my group should follow the dictates of a leader. But still how can I be free if I need to be led?

By now, we should see that there is a certain inconsistency with being led and being free. Being led means I follow someone else's dictates. But if I am following someone else's dictates, how can I be free? Perhaps we should admit to ourselves here that, all too often, we give up self-governance for the promise of acquiring and keeping a greater prosperity. To put all of this in Biblical terms, we are choosing the love of money as our first love and will be willing to ride in on the coattails of our leaders regardless of the methods they use to provide prosperity.

But what about our representative form of government? Might we ask whether we can be free and self-governing while electing representatives who will make decisions in our place? We could ask that but we are not allowed to. But those who wish to be self-governed  should take a different approach to voting than what is traditionally taken by those loyal to the Two-Party system. 

How should our approach to voting be different? Instead of voting for those who believe that part of being a leader is pretending to know how to solve our problems and thus make promises, we should vote for those candidates whose highest priority and greatest attribute is to listen to us. And by listening to us, I don't mean that they will merely spend time listening to our problems. Rather, we should vote for the candidates who take our suggestions for solving problems and work to implement them. That is we should vote for those candidates who desire to find out what we think should be done. So instead of voting for the best or strongest authoritarian commander, we should be voting for the best listener who is skilled at implementing what we tell him/her to do. As a result, our political campaigns should run all year round and consist of our elected officials seeking our views rather than trying to impress us with the "strength" of their convictions and "wisdom" of their proposals. For should we note that the "strength" and "wisdom"  associated with any candidate is partly due to marketing and is often a manufactured mirage to win elections.

And outside the border of our country, those countries that follow the leadership of a single country are subject to the same fate as the people who allow a national leader to emerge and tell them what to do. Instead, decisions as to how to respond to an international crisis should be made jointly and by consensus rather than by the dictates of a single person or even nation.

Thus, we return to the need for leadership in our new crisis. We are being threatened by ISIS. So how should our elected officials respond? The immediate call is for our officials, our President in particular, to reassure us by offering "strong" leadership. The stronger the leadership, the more secure we can feel in the face of danger. But what is strong leadership other than mastery of the imperative? And if our President is master of the imperative, how can any person or country supporting him be considered free? 

And so now we return to the original comparison made in this blogpost. We can choose to continue with the status quo and look to vote for the next leader who pretends to have a handle on all domestic and foreign problems but who is destined to disappoint us, or we can adopt the philosophy of, though not the implementation adopted by, Occupy Wall Street. Remember that the status quo is leader oriented where we are told to hitch our wagon to the star who will promises to lead the way. The Occupy Wall Street approach, on the other hand, calls on us to participate more and more so that eventually we are leading ourselves, we are exercising self-governance. The former requires little attention and participation on our part while the latter demands great attention but gives us control.

The current disapproval rates of government tell us that neither major political party can deliver the leaders who can actually get the job done though they always seem to be able to rob us of the ability to govern ourselves. The result is that we either give up on voting or be continually fooled into voting for the next set of inept leaders. So isn't it time that we change how we select our elected officials? Isn't it time that we demand that our political candidates spend more time listening to us than we spend listening to them?