The ability to hold yourself above turmoil and pettiness— to retain your dignity — is the mark of a leader. We mourn its loss in the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, and wonder what it would be like to have leaders like her in our own government now.
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6 replies on “Dignity: Death of Queen Elizabeth II Highlights Need for This Leadership Quality Here”
This segment made me long for the day when a discussion of a leader in our country be headed by a picture with the word “Dignity” in its title.
people in the US forget that the Royalty is not being a member of the Kardashian’s , i think that is what Meghan forgets- she actually married into a family that is continuing a legacy that started in 1066. I think she thought she would have a Disney Princess lifestyle but that is not what it is.
i have heard several times in the past few days how we in the US can never understand – our Presidents are only in place for 8 years at most – so politics never leaves the table- where with the Queen- Now a King- Politics cannot be part of the equation.
Zo at 8:00: Edmund Burke was the one who said to his constituents, something to the effect of “as your representative, you should expect me to use my best judgement in regard to an issue, rather than just being a conduit for your (ignorant) passions”. So there is a balance required of the representatives in our republic to both reflect our views and to also educate or persuade us that perhaps in some cases those views are not good or appropriate for a given time/ place/ situation.
This balance you speak of is a real thing and rests on a razor edge. Razors can be used to shave or to cut so they make a good analogy. In once case providing a benefit that can only be obtained from a very sharp edge and in the other drawing blood and doing damage. Sometimes to get the benefit you also accidentally incur the drawing of blood too. That negative side effect of drawing blood should always be accidental. No one would go to a barber for a shave that was known to draw blood on purpose. No one would buy a commercial razor that was intended to draw blood and only shaved off whiskers as a side effect.
When it comes to elected officials we need people capable of balancing on a razor’s edge without cutting too many of us in the process.
Considering that politics is by its very nature simultaneously a popularity contest that’s not an easy task.
On the other hand, sometimes drawing blood is inevitable if you want a close shave.
This is one of the weaknesses of a democratically driven Republic. If the intentional blood drawers are very popular and can get elected then they were put in office to draw blood. Thus this balance is no longer the goal. The goal is then to hurt people on the other side of the aisle.
It doesn’t matter which side of the aisle we’re talking about. It’s bad whichever side succumbs to the desire to really hurt people who do not think like them. We are not of that proclivity, or at least we should not be. We need to be careful that we don’t become such a thing. I would like to see the politics of the other side put back on the fringes where it belongs but at the same time not do real harm to other Americans who happen to be consumed by ignorant desires.
Because there is an unending supply of such people. They may not be in the majority but their ignorance does not suffer from scarcity either. There is no way to be rid of them and not become the monsters they will gleefully allow themselves to be.
The best we can hope for is to put them back on the fringes where they actually belong and find a way to keep them there where they can do relatively little harm.
The great sin of the Democrat Party is to encourage and exploit those people who should be ignored. In doing so that Party has found itself swallowed by the beast it sought to harness.
If some way is not found to reverse this situation there will be blood drawn before things get better. With inflation and economic downturn, with energy becoming needlessly more expensive, there’s already real blood being drawn. People with less financial cushion and little or no safety net are going to suffer under current Democrat policies. I hope the situation is self correcting but dare not count on that. A razor cut that goes too deep can be fatal for the guy who only sat down in the barber’s chair for a decent shave.
To have any shot at “Dignity”, you first have to have at least a modicum of both decency and honesty, things which most of our current crop within the political elite neither have, nor seem capable of having either!
Nicely said Mr.Whittle.