thedrifter
12-01-06, 07:32 PM
Leadership Not Ideological "Purity"
Frank Schaeffer
We have grown so out of touch with reality that we think "issues" trump survival. As a result we have George Bush for president. And this isn't only about Republicans. We know in our collective gut that we have second-rate leadership in both parties. That is because we have all---yes all---been drinking ideologically poisoned Kool-Aid.
We think we are somehow exempt from history. So we elect a George Bush because we like his views on abortion, or gay marriage. And we vote for Democrats based on the same sort of issue-tests in reverse.
But what if the job of national leaders is to stand in the gap when the **** hits the fan, rather than to be someone "correct" on "our" issues? What if we no longer have the luxury of playing games, scoring points and trying to "win" the culture wars? What if the next 9/11 is a real crisis, the kind that removes a city from the map, or the whole of the Middle East crumbles into chaos now that Bush has unleashed the dogs of war?
I used to vote "my" pet issues too. No more. Now, as I look ahead to 2008 I'll take an authentic leader over someone I agree with.
I guess having recently had my Marine son go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq concentrated my mind. Maybe I grew up along with him. When it came to getting my beloved child back from war I found myself not caring what his commanders believed about "my issues." I found myself caring about credible leadership, guts, honor, courage, experience and character. I wanted my son to survive.
I want our country to survive too. So it seems to me that the sort of leaders my son was privileged to serve under in the Marine Corps are exactly the kinds of people we should be looking for to lead this country. They didn't give a rat's ass about my son's theological or social beliefs, only that he cared about the Marines standing next to him and did his job.
In my new novel about the Marines---Baby Jack---I've painted a picture of what sacrifice, service and leading from the front looks like. I've written about the confrontation between the most selfish and privileged and those who serve. It will probably be read as a political "statement." I hope not. One bookseller asked: "Is Baby Jack pro-war?" "No," I answered. "It's about something more important---the willingness to sacrifice for something bigger than you are."
That is the lesson we need to re-learn. We are going to have to sacrifice our fondest partisan culture-wars issues, for the greater good.
It is time to admit that our political leadership has been utterly corrupted by having to play ideological "purity" games with their base "constituencies." Enough!
How about we all just stop "fishing" for political advantage based on quasi-moral issues for a while? Let's tell our political leaders---of both parties---that we don't care what they say they believe about God, prayer in schools, gay marriage, abortion or stem cell research. We are at war. While Americans are dying, while all of us are at risk from Islamic fanatics who want to kill us, it behooves us to decide what our priorities are.
You don't argue over social issues in a firefight. As 2008 approaches, let's banish the words, "gender-issues," "gay-issues," "abortion-issues," "women's-issues," "men's-issues," "diversity..." the whole over-fished, over-indulged lexicon of holier-than thou partisan division. Let's see if sanity and community can be restored before we destroy ourselves, or are destroyed by enemies who are a lot more serious than we are.
Be honest: Our leaders---of the left and the right---have not really cared about many of our favorite issues anyway. They and their handlers have just been pushing our pitifully predictable hot buttons to make us dance. Let's confiscate the buttons.
We are fighting ideologues that believe in their cultural/ideological/religious issues deeply enough to strap explosives to their bodies and kill the "other." We have been doing this too. Only we've been playing our suicide politics with cheap words, political smears and judicial tricks in order to "win" against our own version of the other. And we all---from the left, to the right---seem prepared to take our whole country down with us in an ideological fratricide as pointless as the Sunni-against-Shiite chaos engulfing Iraq.
What are national leaders for? They're our insurance policy, what bouncers are to bars. You don't have to like or agree with them.
We should be choosing leaders who won't flinch, who can bring us all home alive even if they have to get tough with us and do it Marine-style. Real leaders have paid their dues, been tested and stood up for more than just winning the next election or raising money while grimly striving for the levers of power by sucking up to people who agree with them.
No matter what your politics, take a look around. There are war dead to burry, tens of thousands of American wounded to care for, a misbegotten war started by an unworthy president to be won, lost or abandoned as fate and leadership will determine.
Whatever is ahead we need leaders, not more panderers to their "base." It's about character stupid!
Ellie
Frank Schaeffer
We have grown so out of touch with reality that we think "issues" trump survival. As a result we have George Bush for president. And this isn't only about Republicans. We know in our collective gut that we have second-rate leadership in both parties. That is because we have all---yes all---been drinking ideologically poisoned Kool-Aid.
We think we are somehow exempt from history. So we elect a George Bush because we like his views on abortion, or gay marriage. And we vote for Democrats based on the same sort of issue-tests in reverse.
But what if the job of national leaders is to stand in the gap when the **** hits the fan, rather than to be someone "correct" on "our" issues? What if we no longer have the luxury of playing games, scoring points and trying to "win" the culture wars? What if the next 9/11 is a real crisis, the kind that removes a city from the map, or the whole of the Middle East crumbles into chaos now that Bush has unleashed the dogs of war?
I used to vote "my" pet issues too. No more. Now, as I look ahead to 2008 I'll take an authentic leader over someone I agree with.
I guess having recently had my Marine son go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq concentrated my mind. Maybe I grew up along with him. When it came to getting my beloved child back from war I found myself not caring what his commanders believed about "my issues." I found myself caring about credible leadership, guts, honor, courage, experience and character. I wanted my son to survive.
I want our country to survive too. So it seems to me that the sort of leaders my son was privileged to serve under in the Marine Corps are exactly the kinds of people we should be looking for to lead this country. They didn't give a rat's ass about my son's theological or social beliefs, only that he cared about the Marines standing next to him and did his job.
In my new novel about the Marines---Baby Jack---I've painted a picture of what sacrifice, service and leading from the front looks like. I've written about the confrontation between the most selfish and privileged and those who serve. It will probably be read as a political "statement." I hope not. One bookseller asked: "Is Baby Jack pro-war?" "No," I answered. "It's about something more important---the willingness to sacrifice for something bigger than you are."
That is the lesson we need to re-learn. We are going to have to sacrifice our fondest partisan culture-wars issues, for the greater good.
It is time to admit that our political leadership has been utterly corrupted by having to play ideological "purity" games with their base "constituencies." Enough!
How about we all just stop "fishing" for political advantage based on quasi-moral issues for a while? Let's tell our political leaders---of both parties---that we don't care what they say they believe about God, prayer in schools, gay marriage, abortion or stem cell research. We are at war. While Americans are dying, while all of us are at risk from Islamic fanatics who want to kill us, it behooves us to decide what our priorities are.
You don't argue over social issues in a firefight. As 2008 approaches, let's banish the words, "gender-issues," "gay-issues," "abortion-issues," "women's-issues," "men's-issues," "diversity..." the whole over-fished, over-indulged lexicon of holier-than thou partisan division. Let's see if sanity and community can be restored before we destroy ourselves, or are destroyed by enemies who are a lot more serious than we are.
Be honest: Our leaders---of the left and the right---have not really cared about many of our favorite issues anyway. They and their handlers have just been pushing our pitifully predictable hot buttons to make us dance. Let's confiscate the buttons.
We are fighting ideologues that believe in their cultural/ideological/religious issues deeply enough to strap explosives to their bodies and kill the "other." We have been doing this too. Only we've been playing our suicide politics with cheap words, political smears and judicial tricks in order to "win" against our own version of the other. And we all---from the left, to the right---seem prepared to take our whole country down with us in an ideological fratricide as pointless as the Sunni-against-Shiite chaos engulfing Iraq.
What are national leaders for? They're our insurance policy, what bouncers are to bars. You don't have to like or agree with them.
We should be choosing leaders who won't flinch, who can bring us all home alive even if they have to get tough with us and do it Marine-style. Real leaders have paid their dues, been tested and stood up for more than just winning the next election or raising money while grimly striving for the levers of power by sucking up to people who agree with them.
No matter what your politics, take a look around. There are war dead to burry, tens of thousands of American wounded to care for, a misbegotten war started by an unworthy president to be won, lost or abandoned as fate and leadership will determine.
Whatever is ahead we need leaders, not more panderers to their "base." It's about character stupid!
Ellie