Prerogatives of Presidency?

With the death, yesterday, of socialist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and the reelection, recently, of United States president Barak Obama, some observations on leadership prerogatives and style of politically powerful individuals begs expression.  This is not to make explicit suggestion that Mr. Chavez and Mr. Obama have more personal or political commonalities than this writer's respect for public office and politeness would allow, but one who, like me, is not a fawning fan of either might have cause to wonder.  

I have always been cautious about charismatic, folksy, bombastic, grandiose, nationalistic ‘leaders’ who, when they get power and then don’t easily get their own way resort to hard-core tactics to prevail.  The amazing thing to me is that the ‘masses’ seem to buy it and that they don’t see down the road what is in store for them.  I think many must have been asleep when they were taking their high school history and political science classes.  On second thought, perhaps many were not in this country or in school when historical realities were taught. 

Authoritarianism and despotism historically come to be the way of many leaders-to-be when conditions in a country are depressed.  Look at the Hitlers,’ the Stalins,’ the Castros,’ the Moammar Gadhafis,’  the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads,’ or Hugo Chavez, the “silver-tongued preacher-in-uniform,” as he was described by the Wall Street Journal.  For me, I looked askance and with embarrassment at the scare-tactics of our own president last week when the government ‘sequester’ was imminent and he was unlikely to get his own way.  (Many, besides the House of Representatives didn’t buy it.  Neither did investors, apparently, because the stock market today peaked at its highest point in history.)

One commonality of all of these ‘strongmen’ leaders was/is their ability to forge a direct populist emotional link with the poor or uneducated or discontented or unempowered—the minorities who now have a spokesman.  They were/are 'given' or promised something by this 'leader' and loyalty was thus secured.  When people have an axe to grind, or they don’t understand simple economics, they fall for the candidate who typically has the strongest rhetoric and who is perceived as not afraid to take on whomever might be in power regardless of established rule-of-law or the moral rightness/wrongness of the strong-man’s trumpeted ‘enlightened solutions’ or policies. 

These ‘leaders’ promise to their constituents the world and then take, or try to take, by whatever means, what they call an increasingly large ‘fair share’ from those who have been the real producers  or the defenders of the moral foundations of the nation.  But what happens when the producers  or defenders cannot or choose not, because of regulation or expropriation or nationalization, or discouragement, no longer produce?

When Atlas ‘shrugs’ (if any of my readers have not read Atlas Shrugged [fiction] by Ayn Rand or The Book of Mormon [non-fiction] read them) or the producers outsource or go elsewhere to produce, or live, or the high-bracket taxpayers move out of, say, California to go to a more tax-friendly state rather  than stick around to pay for politicians’ promises or mistakes, then not only do the bills not get paid, but the seeds of anarchy are planted. 

In the days of Moses, the children of Israel chose to leave Egypt when things got too bad.  In our much ‘smaller’ world where do we have to go except to some principle-driven churches, our conscience, our Constitution, and our ballot box to try to get things stabilized or on track once again?  What we do not have to do is to submit to the prerogatives of an inflated presidential ego or a morally ungrounded elected political leadership any longer than the time of the next election.  If we continue to submit or buy into the rhetoric or think the 'freebies' can last forever so long as the 'government' is paying or promising or demanding we will pay a dear price for a long, long time.  You think the national debt is high now?  Think again.  Interest and 'takers' will never stop.   

A Spiritual Core

Anyone with a modicum of educated and disciplined morality will know that our nation is drifting farther and farther from its moorings.  George Washington observed that, “There is an insoluble union between virtue and happiness” and that our safety and future are to be founded in private morality (1^st Inaugural Address). Morality, though conditioned by conscience, is taught in the home and respected by government.

A lack of national virtue is simply the aggregate of a lack of personal virtue.   If we want to get the ship anchored again, we, the people, need to give obedience to the unenforceable—the virtue that was planted in our hearts at birth and that was once nurtured by parents who knew the moral law. 

Widespread lack of self-control (personal morality) will bring inevitable government control or terrible anarchy.  Alexis De’ Toqueville in his critique of America observed that misused democracy has “narrowed us into the cell of our own heart.”  We talk of the ‘state of the union' as though it was something apart from the people.  What is the state of our heart?

Though we sometimes sing our patriotic anthem,  America, “…God shed his grace on thee…” it won’t happen unless we start behaving better. You can put me on record that we  have seen our best days—until the 'Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.' 

If there is any hope for us as a nation, we would do well for us to learn from the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel: 

“Priests [insert here, besides some Catholic priests, presidents and public officials] have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and the profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean” (Ezekiel 22:26).  

No greater example of those who want to disavow the Higher Law could be shown than our president’s filing, this week, and the list of public figures who signed the petition, of the legal brief before the Supreme Court of his urging that the Defense of Marriage Act be declared unconstitutional. What a betrayal to our nation! What are these 'leaders' leading us into?

Will our ‘leaders’ never learn the lessons of history?  Will and Ariel Durant, who studied twenty civilizations producing ten volumes, warned, among other things, that “sex is a river of fire which must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints or it will destroy both the individual and the group.”  Another wise person I once read said: ‘The world would destroy the family, while urging people to search for their identity and for a sense of belonging.  The world promotes sexual freedom even while such promiscuity places man in peer prisons whose walls of appetite are higher than any prison wall.  The solutions the world offers are cruel, conceptual cul-de-sacs.’ 

By contrast, I applaud and salute those who teach and follow the admonition of Paul: “Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2). 

Strong marriages and homes governed by faith in God and obedience to his commandments are the very core.   

We must regain, not repudiate, our spiritual core if we are to survive.   

Celebrity

It seems I find myself more and more frequently in places (such as when making visits to elderly friends or family) where the television is nearly always ‘on.’ And at the times I make my visits it always seems to be tuned in to some talk show or interactive show between the host and a guest.

 Inevitably I find myself then assaulted by programming, conversations, and commercial advertisements that are jarring, inane, banal, frequently crude, and often (a favorite legal phrase) ‘utterly without redeeming social value.’ 

What astonishes me most, though, is the almost reverential response the audience gives (maybe encouraged by the cue-boards, or maybe not) to the host of the program and any celebrity featured. The veneration is encouraged beyond the television studio as the sycophantic and parasitic ‘paparazzi’ do their work.  

 Especially was that the case in a couple of recent episodes of the Ellen DeGeneres Show that I politely and sufferingly sat through.    I felt embarrassed by the uninhibited screaming and squealing and excited antics of the audience but more so by the women/young women who were telephoned by the host as the recipients of a money gift she was giving them.  The celebrity was talking to them!  Another celebrity hostess, Oprah, previously did something similar, as I recall, as she deigned to ‘bless’ her admirers with her largess.   It was hard not to get the feeling that these celebrities were ‘buying’ the adulation of their audiences. It was pathetic.  

In my part of California, every year, is the AT&T National Pro-am Celebrity Golf Tournament.  It is the same thing here.  Thousands of spectators throng the venue so they can see, hear, maybe even touch (swoon) some celebrity—athlete, musician, actor, politician-- who is more likely than not vain, arrogant, rude and probably very rich.  For a spectator to get an autograph, make eye contact, or have a photograph taken with the celebrity is a great coup. 

Why?  Because the follower is somehow, for a moment, being recognized just as the celebrity is being recognized. They feed off each other.  People crave recognition. 

I wonder if there is not some commonality among these various audiences, spectators, admirerers, or camp-followers?  Are the celebrities, the object of the fans’ veneration, perhaps the incarnation of their highest values?  To be rich, to have one’s  name known by thousands, to have some surpassing skill or gift, or fortune, is it not perhaps the acquisition of a lifetime that some lesser-endowed commoner values above all things?  Psychologically does the common man/woman, boy or girl, subconsciously even think that mere proximity to or acknowledgment by one of the idols the sought-for qualities of the idol will rub off on them? 

No, it will not rub off.  And no, I do not see evidence that the admired one becomes even more worthy of their followings’ esteem by being fawned over.  To the contrary.  Where I work, a golf tournament is held annually featuring professional baseball players.  As a group, they are the most arrogant, foul-mouthed and obnoxious category of people I’ve ever been around.  And they are all millionaires. 

These people—these idols—become even more distorted in their self image and in their ‘need’ to gain more fame as they gain more fame.  It is unquenchable—it becomes an addiction.   I am not conversant with the moral cesspool of Hollywood (the newsstand tabloids that I pass in the supermarket checkout line constantly parades that), but I have been a follower of some personalities of the sports world and see what has happened there. Witness the sad fall in the last decade of some of the biggest icons in sports world: Barry Bonds, Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, and now Oscar Pistorius.  Besides baseball, golf, cycling, and track and field, as represented by these athletes, other sports have been seriously besmirched.  Decades ago boxing and now professional basketball as a whole, as far as I have been informed, are beyond the pale. Discredit seems to be descending upon the whole world of sport—a terrible shame in my view. 

Politics is increasingly being viewed through the same lens in the public eye as a president and some congressmen have had revealed their flawed character and moral bankruptcy over the past couple of decades.  We could go on to other celebrity groups, but to what avail? I hope the point is made.  

The long and short of it is that fame, money, and power corrupts.  

The warning to us—to the common man/woman—is that we are hard-wired to emulate what we worship.  If we worship the worldly, that is what we will get; the celestial will move beyond us and the worldly, in the end,  will become a pile of ashes.  The only way to stay uncontaminated if we get into the public arena, as a follower or a participant, in my opinion, is to “put on the whole armor of God,”—every day—and  become spiritually very well-grounded.   Short-circuits will inevitably follow if we do not.   

A Monkey-wrench in the Works

The term ‘monkey-wrench’ is, of course, used colloquially and not even accurately (what  I’m referring to is an adjustable wrench named after its inventor, a man named Charles Moncky—not ‘monkey).  A better phrase would be ‘sand in the gears,’ or better yet the word would be ‘entropy’ (the degree of disorder in a system; an ultimate state of inert uniformity).  What I’m really talking about is the fact that things are running down all around us—including ourselves.  Contrary to the song title, we are not ‘Forever Young.’  We get a good night’s sleep and then look in the mirror in the morning and we look worse than ever.  We are always fighting entropy.  Alas. 

So, what do we do about it?  We keep fighting, but we fight smarter. 

We shift to a different gear.  Instead of trying to do great in something we used to do great in,--using the same old equipment or techniques or outmoded methods-- we either update or shift to something else that we might learn to do great in or we get into a different bracket.  Golf, for me, is a good example.  Instead of trying to compete with the young guys, I move to the ‘senior division,’ or now the ‘super senior’s.’ I also use the new equipment and analyze the current 'best practices.'  By working hard at it you will occasionally find, to your great satisfaction, that you can still, occasionally, beat the young guys.  We use our experience and we use our brains. If we were never great in anything before, we should not conclude that we can’t be great in something that we are yet to discover.  Discovery of a new challenge and then accomplishing it is the spice of life. 

The thing that is astonishing to me, is that in some things we can still do very well if we can simply adapt to the new challenges by adapting to the new technology/products/approaches/increased knowledge that is available.  And much is available—we just need to start looking and adjusting. 

A book that I am now reading, That Used to be Us, by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, develops the point that for the United States to be the great country it used to be, we need to start believing in ourselves again.  We would do well, they say, to adopt the United States Air Force doctrine of OODA (observe, orient, decide, act).  They further say that "Our biggest problem is that we've strayed so far from our own best practices [of] focus, moral authority, seriousness, collective action and stick-to-itiveness (p. 11)."  

My point, today, is that we must, as Winston Churchill said, “never, never give up.” Just adapt.  It is a life imperative that we ‘Be all you can be’ at any age, under any challenges, under whatever circumstances you find yourself.  

If you find nothing else (which I doubt), you will find, at least, that you are an inspiration to someone else who has not worked as hard or as smart as you.  And it is no small thing to be an inspiration.

The Measure of Our Creation

Among the most fundamental of all questions is, ‘What is the purpose of life?’  Of course in asking this what we probably mean is, ‘What is the purpose of my life?  Am I fulfilling my destiny?  Am I on track?  Am I in charge of where I am going or want to go or am I being acted upon by outside agencies and circumstances? 

The answer is complex, at least for people, and I will not attempt to go there today. 

 

But I would like to take a look at how our behavior impacts the lives of other ‘life’ around us; whether what we do affects the ‘measure of their creation.’ 

Over forty years ago I put up my rifle and shotgun and chose to no longer be a hunter.  I reflected upon the animals I had killed and thought, ‘Did I have a right to take their lives just for sport—just to amuse me?  The clarion answer that came to me was ‘No.’  But why?

As I have enjoyed my pets (and they me) and learned more about the social behavior of animals from colonies of ants, to the migration of whales, to the bonding of fowl to their mates or first life attachments whether of their own biological mothers or other surrogates, to the school grouping of dolphins, or lion prides,  or elephant or crow families, I am convinced that to a lesser or greater extent many of the upper species do have feelings, do create attachments, and that we, as humans, have a stewardship to take care of the living things of this earth.  We share this planet for the purpose of fulfilling the measure of our creation just as they do.  And in my experience, when people do take care of animals they find it to be a great pleasure. 

We are not to kill, hurt, or make afraid just for our amusement.  All life is not of equal value but all does have value; there is a hierarchy.  Human life is at the pinnacle and we must respect it and protect it and facilitate it to the extent of our ability.  Except for terrorists and suicide bombers and their handlers I think most do.

The higher mammals, I suspect come next, and that is the reason why we can connect with them so easily.  I do not know the precise order that follows but I am convinced that each has value and should be protected in turn.  There is, undisputedly, a web-of-life that God has placed upon this earth to contribute to the life of God’s greatest creation, man, but the lower forms of life, I suspect, are an end in themselves as well. 

I guess the immediate question is, ‘Am I living the Christian “golden rule” with respect to all forms of life within the sphere of my influence or reasonable control?’  The Eastern Religion Jainism (related to Hinduism), likewise, has as a central doctrine ‘Ahimsa’ or respect for life that we could do well to consider if not emulate sans its extremes. Its emphasis on being in harmony with nature has much to recommend it.  

May we all live and let live so that all can ‘Meet the measure of its creation’ and have joy.