Take me to your leader

So, I read in a New York Times article today (found HERE) that some GOP candidates who are in the process of selecting running mates are looking for someone who gives a "strong conservative presence" since that is their best chance of overcoming a "weak, passive president."  I don't want to get political or partisan, but it made me wonder what men and women in general look for in a leader.

Let's start with strength.  Who among us, when asked "Do you prefer a weak leader?" would say, "Yes, that is what I am looking for.  Someone who crumbles under pressure.  Someone who will just kinda go with the flow.  When there's a tough decision to be made, I want my leader to just pretend that everything is okay and try to distract everybody from the real issue."  No.  People want a leader who can deliver.

However.  Sometimes having an extreme position on an issue appears as strength, but in reality, is just fear with a loudspeaker.  Just because I can rally a crowd by telling them what they want to hear doesn't mean I have the strength to stand upon real values- to resist the urge to sellout or to accept bribes... to stand up for justice, even when it means disagreeing with those who are approving your paycheck.

Some people also are looking for "conservative-ness."  I wonder if this is just the affiliation of being "Conservative" (I believe in blah, blah, and blah), or if this is conservative in behavior.  Dictionary.com defines conservative as: "disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc.,or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change."  Some people like it when their leaders "leave well enough alone."  Don't change things!  Don't tell me how to live my life!  If I want a non-efficient light bulb (see my article HERE), then let me buy one, dammit!  It's my life, and I like it just the way it is. I saw a bumper sticker on the back of a pickup truck that said, "I'll keep my money, guns, and freedom, and you can keep your 'change'!"  Things are great for some people, and they don't need a leader to change that.


But what if that same person who likes things the way they are were to look around and see things that weren't so great for other people?  Warren Buffet is a new hero of mine for doing this exact thing (read his recent article HERE).  He's got tons of money (being a brilliant business man), and the current tax system is helping to protect his fortune with lots of great tax cuts, but he looks around and sees 9% unemployment in the U.S., and that poverty is widespread and that the middle and lower class are getting taxed more severely than him.  He stands up and says, quote: "My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice."  Props.


I don't mean to attack conservatives- I guess I just naturally see a downside to that way of thinking (as I'm sure anyone can find the downside to my thinking).  When I look for a leader to follow, I don't look for someone who will coddle me by trying to appear strong and give me everything I want: I look for a leader who cares about true justice and one who's strength lies within him to stand up for the rights of all people, not just those in his rich circle.

Cowboys and Aliens (in a one-dollar theatre)

Julie and I saw the previously-mentioned movie in the dollar theatre in Raleigh tonight.  Not Daniel Craig's or Harrison Ford's best or even second best, but still a decent flick.  I left feeling a little better about the whole Cowboy/Indian misunderstanding... ("Oh, this was YOUR land?  Oops.  Well, we're already here, so...")  and I also felt a little bit of sympathy for the Aliens.  I mean, sure, they're abducting us to perform experiments to figure out the best way to wipe out our entire civilization just so they can have easier access to our gold, but who wouldn't do that in their position?  We do experiments on mice and rabbits with the justification that there's a lot of them and they don't have as sophisticated brains as we do.  Well, to a brilliant Alien, our minds are quite inferior, and we've overpopulated the planet, anyway, so picking off a few cowboys really won't make too much of a dent.  It's all about comparisons.

In the luxurious theatre that we saw the movie, the seat next to mine was broken, and about 300 people kept asking to sit next to us (the place was packed- cheap bastards, all of us) and we had to tell them the situation.  You know, not one of them thought twice about why there was a broken seat in the movie theatre.  "This seat is broken."  "Oh, okay."  How often does this happen?  What if I had said, "This seat has an invisible man sitting on it."  Would they have still just said, "oh okay"?  Or what if I had said, "This seat sometimes spontaneously combusts into flame"?  "So, is it available?"

My new job is pretty fun, except the espresso machine is TOTAL CRAP and my bosses know it.  I'm going to be PUSHING for a new one very soon.  In the mean time, I have to learn how to stop the damn machine from ruining all my lattes.

-Tim

Leave "well enough" alone?

Hammer.

 MC Hammer.  

I just couldn't help myself.


Julie and I got into a discussion yesterday about our duplex and our role as tenants to ask our landlord to repair the place.  I was bitching about this and the other that didn't work properly and the health hazards attached to that and she (very wisely) said, "Tim, we are only going to be here for a couple years.  Maybe we don't need to upset our landlord."

It took me a second to compose myself.  I was thinking, "But I'm right!  This place needs to be fixed up properly!  It's... the RIGHT thing to do!"  And then I thought a little longer...  I think I ended up giving a bit of a bullshit answer about how if the roof doesn't cave in on us, what if it caves in on the next tenant's little kid and now we're to blame because we didn't have our landlord fix it...  I said that I'm made of stuff a little different than other people.  I told her that other people don't have the guts or stupidity to stand up to their landlords and ask that they do their damn job.  I successfully managed to get some sympathy from my wife.  But, if I were to get off of my soap box for a minute...  I think I missed something important.

Julie understands something that I often overlook: the relationship we have with our landlord is WAY more important than ensuring that our doorknobs turn smoothly, or the banister doesn't fall off.  He's a good man, from what I can tell, and he has been coming over once a week to fix stuff or spray poison ivy, or try to help us get rid of our cockroaches.  He gave us a tour of his fricken electron lab, for crying out loud!

Sometimes when I point to a problem I forget that I'm also pointing at a human being (God has asked that I show love to) who has feelings.  It can be embarrassing to be told, "Hey, this duplex that you own is a piece of shit."  He wants to make it good... and he also wants to save a buck or two if he can by only fixing what is absolutely necessary.  I get that.  I learned that from my dad all growing up.

Plus, I'm overlooking something extremely important.  This is where we are supposed to be, and I'm learning a hell of a lot in how to upkeep a house while we are here (which will be extremely important if we ever own a house someday).  BESIDES, I got nothing else to do today, what am I bitching about?

My next projects are: seal off 3 windows that leak, put new weather stripping on 3 doors, fix the gate so it actually closes properly, fix two old wooden chairs, and find a punching bag and weight set for the basement... those are just as related as you would think.  :)