Selfishness - the root of political rot - Granite Grok

Selfishness – the root of political rot

Peggy Noonan, from my standpoint and outlook, either is a major whiff or hits home runs.  Her latest column in the WSJ, however, is more the latter than the former.  I have oft complained that a major part of the reason we have the political disfunctions we do is:

  • that the politicians we elect say what we hope to hear
  • that then they turn around and simply run for re-election right after being elected
  • and to do so, they avoid the major and important decisions, large and small, that we really need made BY THEM

instead of what we now know to be true – a bunch of partisan and ideologically driven bureaucrats (after all, there is a reason why the Democrats are called “the Party of Government”).  I say they’re political cowards (and seconded here).  She uses a different word: selfishness – putting themselves before their constituents.

Sometimes the most obvious thing is the most unnoticed. I find myself thinking this week about the destructive force of selfishness in our political life. This common failing is the source of such woe! Politicians call themselves public servants, so they should be expected to be less selfish than the average Joe ; their views and actions should be assumed to be more keenly directed toward the broad public good. But no one expects that of politicians anymore, and they know it and use the knowledge to justify being even worse than they’d normally be. “If I have the name, I might as well have the game.”

They are the locus of selfishness in the modern world.

We have heard our politicians rue the superstars of athletics or capitalism when they act like the fallen humans they are.  After all, THESE are the role models for our youth and impressionable!  They forget (or want us to ignore) that they are just as suspect as well. They are accuse them of greed even as they are selfish themselves – but instead of money, their greed is ever for more power and control over others. The question that is begged is: what happens to the rest of Society when the role models, political ones especially,  have no sense of ethics or morales (yeah, those two little words that require absolute values that Progressives wish to erase from our common vocabulary and thought)?

Chris Christie’s problem isn’t that he’s a bully, it’s that he’s selfish. Barack Obama isn’t stupid and therefore the maker of mayhem, he’s selfish.

There isn’t a staffer on the Hill who won’t tell you 90% of members are driven by their own needs, wants and interests, not America’s. The former defense secretary, Bob Gates, has written a whole book about it, and the passages in which he speaks most plainly read like a cry from the heart. The chaplain of the Senate, Barry Black, made news a few months ago because he’d taken to praying that the character of our representatives be improved. “Save us from the madness,” he prayed one morning last October. “We acknowledge our transgressions, our shortcomings, our smugness, our selfishness.” The single most memorable thing I ever heard from a Wall Streeter was from one of its great men, who blandly explained to me one day why certain wealthy individuals were taking an action that was both greedy and personally inconvenient to them. “Everyone wants more,” he said, not in a castigating way but as one explains certain essentials to a child.

People in public life have become more grasping, and less embarrassed by it. But the odd thing, the destabilizing thing as you think about it, is that we’re in a crisis. We’ve been in it since at least 2008 and the crash, and the wars. We are in unprecedented trouble. Citizens know this. It’s why they buy guns. They see unfixable America around them, they think it’s all going to fall apart. In Washington (and New York) they huff and puff their disapproval: Those Americans with their guns, they’re causing a lot of trouble. But Americans think they’re in trouble because their leaders are too selfish to face challenges that will do us in.

Like I said, high level pols braying full of bravado who do nothing but kick the can down the road instead of acting making the real hard decisions; go ahead, contrast them with the 18 and 19 year olds of our military that fight our enemies – their knees knocking and their words caught in their throats, but they have the internal courage to move forward to accomplish the mission – and will, without a moment’s hesitation, the true bravery to protect “the others” – their buddies.

Look I get it – one doesn’t run for that kind of high office without the ego to match.  One either has to be totally craven or supremely confident that they can handle the job.  But either way, we back in the sticks keep sending these chuckleheads to DC, full of hope, and end up saying “great, another vote and years flushed down the toilet”.  Silly, we do keep looking for the next person – but now one of my “important questions” is “how can we be sure you won’t go DC on us?  Nice words now, but what words will we have for you at the end of your term (or somewhere in between)?”

What’s most striking is that in a crisis, you don’t expect business as usual. You expect something better from leaders, you expect them to try to meet the moment.

Ain’t that the truth! And isn’t that the heartache – most won’t just lead from behind, they don’t want to lead at all.

… But when Bridgegate came, it seemed to fit the pattern—he’ll ding you when he doesn’t have to, even if it makes local citizens cry, to gain an advantage, to get more. Whoever made the call, selfishness is at the heart of the scandal.

…There’s an increasing sense in our political life that in both parties politicians call themselves public servants but act like bosses who think the voters work for them. Physicians who routinely help the needy and the uninsured do not call themselves servants. They get to be called the 1%. Politicians who jerk around doctors, nurses and health systems call themselves servants, when of course they look more like little kings and queens instructing the grudging peasants in how to arrange their affairs.

...It was political selfishness that blew up the American health-care system. And it’s the public, in this and other messes, that’s left holding the bag. But as government gets bigger the bag gets bigger, and people will get tired of carrying it. They’re already tired….Someday history will write of our era, and to history the biggest scandal will be the thing we all accepted in our leaders, chronic and endemic selfishness. History will be hard on us for that.

She’s right.  With this, I’m betting that at some point, that bigger bag may well shrink and shrink rather rapidly.  For the people will have finally revolted against the selfish ones that keep demanding more from them even while being called selfish in keeping what they’ve earned.

(H/T: Big Journalism)

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