Episode #0109 Want a Better America? We Must Become Better Leaders Ourselves

Peggy Noonan and Magic Ponies...
A few weeks ago, I made a quick post about a column by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal about Americans—that’s you and me—and politics and “magic ponies.” With a new Congress coming in and the 2020 election already starting, it made sense to go into greater depth on this issue.

Noonan argues that Americans are voting for “magic ponies” like Trump and Obama based too much on emotion and not enough on their experience and judgment.

She is correct.

That failure to vote for wisdom and experience is a symptom of a much deeper and more threatening problem facing America. Facing us. Facing you and me.

And that problem is us. The problem is you and me.
America is United by Ideals, Not Blood or Ethnicity
Almost all nations in world history are grounded in ethnicity or tribe. You are Japanese because you are born Japanese. You are Tutsi because you were born in the Tutsi tribe.

In these nations, the people look to the rulers, the government, to solve their problems because those are the people who rule the nation or tribe. Its what they’ve been doing from the beginning. They are citizen-subjects of their ruling government

America is different. We are not united by blood or ethnicity. We are united by commitment to the American ideals expressed in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

In the American military and in our citizenship oath, we don’t swear allegiance to a king or ruler. We swear allegiance to “support and defend the Constitution.”
Citizen-Leaders Not Citizen-Subjects
Our politicians are not the leaders of America. We The People–you and me–are the defined leaders of America. We are not citizen-subjects of the government. We are citizen-leaders in our own nation.

That citizen-leadership goes way beyond the government. Through most of our history, We the People solved most of our problems using private associations. We formed non-profits, private associations and charities to tackle challenges like health care, education, homelessness and many other problems.

Tackling problems as private citizen-leaders does several important things. When we help others directly, we develop our own character, compassion and sense of community. All these are keys to Happiness in life.

When we are the leaders solving problems, we take ownership of the problems, investing ourselves in solving those problems. As citizen-leaders working through private associations, we solve problems more effectively, efficiently and with better response than the government can.

Finally, Americans have always been wary of a federal government that gains too much power and becomes tyrannical. Our Constitution is written to have three co-equal branches of federal government. The branches exercise checks and balances over each other, preventing any one branch from having too much power. That is designed to keep the federal government itself from having too much power and becoming tyrannical.

When we tackle problems ourselves, as citizen-leaders, we keep the power with the people, not the government. We prevent tyranny and maintain our freedom.

In his famous 1830’s book, Democracy in America, Alexis De Tocqueville tours America and notes this fundamental difference between America and Europe. In Europe, citizen-subjects are dependent on the ruling class and government to lead and do things for them. In contrast, Americans take leadership onto themselves, forming associations with other Americans to accomplish things.
Our Failure as Citizen-Leaders
Today, We the People, you and I, are failing as citizen-leaders in at least two ways.

First, as citizen-leaders, we are responsible for choosing the best representatives possible to manage our government day-to-day. Nevertheless, the media is filled with complaints about our government from all sides. We seem to be very unhappy with the representatives we choose.

The problem is,