The Valentine’s Day massacre at Northern Illinois University, like the killings at places such as Columbine High School and Virginia Tech, has evoked expressions of horror and sympathy and familiar questions about the killer’s motives and mental health. Atrocities like these make Americans feel angry and perhaps helpless....and that's as far as I got before my head gasket failed.
Our political leaders...
Folks, we have a serious perception problem in this country. A bunch of people seem to think we have "leaders" instead of "representatives". Bosses and not employees.
Folks, we hired them. We pay them. They work for you, not the other way around. If you are sitting around and waiting for leadership from this collection of do-gooders, used car salesmen, and former Student Body Treasurers, you might as well wait for Santa while you're at it.
These are the people we hire to schlep out our legislative trash in Washington, DC because we're too busy being, you know, productive to handle scutwork like that. We've given them a metaphorical Roto-Rooter and asked them to keep the navigable waterways clear; handed them a calculator and asked them to keep an eye on the national checking account. And, like a sixteen year-old left home with a simple list of chores who instead gets into the liquor cabinet and invites her friends over for a party, look what's happened to them.
Folks, if you want "Political Leaders" you're living in the wrong country; the closest provision we have for a "Political Leader" in the Constitution is the guy we hire to mind the Army & Navy and shake hands with foreigners for us. This is the country where we're supposed to be leading ourselves, not waiting for solutions to be handed down from on high. Your representatives are supposed to be representing you, hence the name. They are not the legislative equivalent of grenades, where you pull the electoral pin, lob them towards Washington, and hope they go off the way you expected. They're your employees; you need to tell them what to do and keep an eye on them, or they'll be stealing the petty cash and spending their whole shift leaning on a broom handle and slacking off.
Don't wait to be led.
Very well said!
ReplyDelete-Pop
And yet when someone moves to take action most cower.
ReplyDeleteHear! Hear!
ReplyDeleteWow. That deserves the widest possible circulation. Very well done.
ReplyDeleteCirculate away. :)
ReplyDeleteRead the NYT's own words on this very issue:
ReplyDeleteWhat media sell for a living is the ability to influence. The holy grail of getting high economic or social prices for media people is the ability to influence. Like the ability to run fast is for an Olympic sprinter.
And thus:
And the gold medal for influencing is the ability to influence "leaders". That's why the NYT carries adverts for things like jet airplanes, and Boeing doesn't advertise in the Chittlin' Switch Morning News.
Access to "Leaders" is the product of the NYT, and every other medium. That access is what the corporation sells to its customers. EVERY journalist's paycheck comes from that access.
"But not the reporters, they are motivated by the TRUTH, the desire to REPORT".
Yes. Would you rather report the news in a paper the President and the Chairman of GM and the procurement officers of the Department of Energy read, or to the readers of the CSMN?
(This fact is what always gets me about media and guns/crime. Media ALWAYS discount the role of media in inducing unpleasant behaviour. Then the people in the advertising department of the exact same rag, network, or studio will boast and prove with exhaustive studies their ability to get people to do things like spend money or change brand loyalty.
" Mr. Toyota, our thirty second product advert will get people to spend millions with you as if by magic. We'll put it in the middle of the 15 minute story about the NIU killer's tragic life.
And that 15 minute story has ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT on encouraging future mass killers. Yes, the content of "Friends" made millions of women demand a particular haircut, and we make millions of people huddle around American Idol, and have arguments about it all week. Talk to the Product Placement Department about how we can make that work for YOU.
But the turn the magic influence automatially stops when the content is unpleasant. Really. ")
Staghounds said what I was gonna say.
ReplyDelete(I wish)
Seriously excellent comment. I wish to associate myself with the remarks of the speaker who preceded me.
Turk
Day-um! The girl is ON this morning!
ReplyDeleteI got just one thing to say in response to that.
ReplyDeleteThey want Free Federal Money™ for pork projects in their district, they want free health care, they want social security, they actually think the $600 rebate they’re getting in a couple months is a good thing, they want the .gov to write a big check and bail out their mortgage company, they want a puppy, they want to suckle at the .gov tit. It’s true. Deal with it. We’re the minority and that is that. Put on your big boy pants and deal with it.
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America does not want what I want out of government. America loves big government. They don’t care about taxes and punishing producers and the non-scalability of things like health care and school systems. America wants Big Brother to make them feel safe. America wants Nanny Government to give them money, food, health care, and whatever else America thinks it’s entitled to loot, courtesy of the producers.
They are representing "us". And now there's nowhere left on the planet to run to, where someone doesn't already have their finger in the pie.
I never liked "Leader of the Free World" and wouldn't follow Bill Clinton or George Bush the youngster anywhere - so I don't think I would call anyone of them leaders. I have problems with the American attitude of waiting for the "proper authorities" to clean up whatevers - first responders - is me on the spot, not that fellow in the Whitehouse.
ReplyDeleteEven Peggy Noonan, who is supposed to be some kind of conservative, used that construction in a column a while back about the sense that "the wheels are coming off."
ReplyDeleteI am not looking to be led. In fact, I politely decline to be led. I will cheerfully be represented, if I can find one.
You preach it!
ReplyDeleteThe masses are working toward "Bread and Circuses" and we all know what comes with that.
D@^n the media! Give me the thinkers and bloggers (they are the same to me.)
Hear, hear!
ReplyDeleteFat chance, they'd publish it, but have you considered sending the NYSlimes this as an OpEd of your own?
Well said.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, I admit I get a little testy when people pull the "You work for me, my taxes pay your salary!" line. Generally it's because they do that when they're wanting me to do something I'm not allowed/supposed to do anyway.
You have no idea how tempted I am to say "Yes, yes I do. And yes, your taxes pay my salary. Based on the last census, your taxes paid about $0.012 of my annual salary last year. Here's a quarter. STFU for the rest of my life."
BryanP
Tam, it takes a special skill to reduce a whole lotta simple concept into it's purest form. If you were a french chef, it would be like creating a nice glace de viande from a big ol' pot of brown veal stock. It isn't rocket science ,afterall.
ReplyDeleteThat should be passed around like those annoying (and wrong) chain letters.
ReplyDeleteNow if we could just get the MSM to stop calling this a democracy...
Is it a coincidence there's no author of this piece? I would hope if someone from the NYT went to all the trouble to preach nonsense at me, this person should at least sign his/her name to it. Otherwise the opinion of teh NYT article belongs to a coward not willing to back up the words with his/her own name.
ReplyDelete*vigorous applause* We are trying.
ReplyDeleteMan I wish I could say things that clearly and concisely.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tam.
"Preach it, Sister!" -The Choir
ReplyDeleteGood Stuff. It's why I stop here first, every day. And an Excellent Comment, Staghounds.
Unfortunately, we have a majority of persons in this country that believe that they CAN NOT do it themselves. That they(or you!)are not strong/smart/wealthy/influential/energetic enough to have any effect on government The idea of the Individual has been abandoned in favor of the Collective. These people WANT to be led. They don't even seem to care WHERE........ either that or they really ARE that short sighted.
bryan- Don't let it get out that you will buy someone's apathetic silence for two bits. There is a virtually unlimited supply of sellers, and you don't have anywhere near enough quarters.
Great rant! But the Waffle House still wins!
ReplyDeleteNot sure what that means, however.
BRB