American Republic Online

I felt compelled to follow-up on Scott’s post regarding Edwards. This is an issue that holds a special place in my heart: the non leadership of leaders. How can a man (or woman) expect to lead if they are unwilling to take a stand? The whole “everything is equal to all else” is ridiculous. I know Edwards only mentioned different faiths, but why are we so scared to say we think something is better, or “more right?” Why in the world do you believe it then? Was it simply encoded into your DNA, and is thus not your fault, so please don’t think any less of you as a human being?

When a person comes to terms with their faith, politics, etc they are declaring the choice is the best out of all the alternatives available. Even those who are “pressured” into it by parents, peers, etc are still making the same declaration. For, choosing someone else’s choice is the best option for them at that time. I’m not trying to get overly philosophical here, but the fact remains that throughout our days we makes choices that we deem the best: the decision to get up and go to work, to eat, to watch TV, to spend time with people, are all choices because we could have stayed in bed, gone on a diet, read a book, or sat in front of the computer working on your blog.

When we look at this behavior, there are really two things at work here: 1. avoiding taking responsibility for your choices, and 2. being scared of offending someone else. If we say that this is what I believe, and it is the best, we then have to take ownership of it. By saying, this is what I believe, but it’s no better than what other people believe, we minimize the importance and our role in the decision. Our society has also been conditioned to be mindful of others’ feelings. While this is fine, it should not be at the expense of one’s own feelings. There can be debate with out rancor, but no one is willing to vocalize their opinions any more out of fear of being called names themselves.

So here we have a possible candidate for president that first of all demonstrates to people of faith that his faith is shallow at best. If faith played as an “enormous” role in Edwards’ life as he claims, it would affect his entire life. Faith is not meant to be compartmentalized. It permeates everything. People understand this, and know this when they elect representatives for themselves. In fact, a large portion of our nation elect people for their faith. Not to establish a theocracy, but because they understand the values these people hold, and that they hope will be with them when they are making decisions that affect us all. They (we) do not want someone in an executive role sitting there wondering how he can keep from offending the least amount of people, instead of making the tough decision that needs to be made. Can you imagine a CEO sitting in his office with a difficult choice to make, hoping he’s not offending someone, and then saying, “Well, any other decision would have been equally good.” The words are hollow, and lack leadership. The first thing someone would say is “Then why didn’t you make the decision that didn’t mean I had to lose my job?”
Can our nation be led by a leader who shows no leadership? The coming election may give us a chance to see.