The Way of Leadership. Part I

    There are many facets to being a good leader today I think it would be best to focus on how a leader must make his decisions. There are two things that a leader must consider when making their decisions and they are these 1. his personal will and 2. his duty to his people. The second option, in my estimation, must be given greater sway. I say this because if a leader focuses on their duty as a leader then their decisions will make for a better future. Now do I mean that the leader must pander to his electorate even if he knows what they want is wrong? No never would I say that. The duty of the leader is to do what is best for the nation or group that they are leading. Reelection and popularity be damned if need be. The duty to the people is to do what is best not what is popular. Look at the example of Abraham Lincoln. He was despised in his day. Yet he followed his duty to the nation and did what he needed to guide the nation through the Civil War. His policies were hated, his motives question yet he never wavered in his duty to serve the people of the United States in bringing this nation back together under one flag. Consider this as well that he was willing to put aside his personal will for freeing the slaves until after the conflict had passed, such sentiments were outright stated in many of his letters. Lincoln the great emancipator followed where duty led.
  
     This kind of leadership is lacking in today's politics. The congresspeople do not follow duty and hold to its course. No rather than take this difficult and hard road they follow the winds of change wherever they may lead. This kind of "leadership" is leading this nation over the edge and into hard times. Where are the leaders of old that would stand for what they knew was right though they knew it could cost them an election? They are long gone. A new generation may arise but what would that require? A bold and fearless leader that would be willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of all. Yes our nation is in dire need of leaders who are willing to put duty ahead of self.

    With all this talk of duty I would be a fool not to discuss personal will. Often times personal will can and will make its way into decision making and that is a good thing. It makes for a good leader as well, so long as it does not supplant duty. For it is personal will that makes the leader human and causes them to look at the world from their experience and bring to the table a new perspective that perhaps would be lost otherwise. A leader can even make his personal will fit with his duty. Again to illustrate this point we turn to Abraham Lincoln and the emancipation of the slaves. Lincoln said if he could free all, none, or part of the slaves and save this nation he would do it. We also know that Lincoln had the personal desire to free all the slaves. From this perspective Lincoln, according to his duty first and will second, freed some of the slaves so that he could help to break the southern war machine, or cotton gin as the case may be. From this example we see that Lincoln followed his duty and his will when he freed only the slaves in states of rebellion. This move was best for the nation. Seeing that the border states would stay with the Union this continued to give the North a great advantage over the South in terms of men and infrastructure.
  
    The way of the leader is difficult. It involves constant tough decision making and often it leads to being hated in the short term. Yet if a leader is good at what they do then it is possible for them to be revered in the long term and to make the nation, state, or community better for them having served there. Where are the leaders like this? They are within the populace of your community. The question I have for you now is this one: when will they decide to take the mantle? For that there is no answer.

Limiting Size

    How may times have we heard the sentiment that we need to limit the size of government. Or that we need to slash spending or some other good sound byte. Yet whenever the person or candidate is pressed on the issue they can never really say what needs to be slashed and what doesn't. Some take this as a sign that no one wants to slash anything and that we therefore should do nothing. This is a very poor way to go about it.  The second option is to take a radical approach and simply cut everything within arms reach down to the barebones, except of course the defense, medicare, and medicaid (the Big Three). Again this is a very poor approach and is extremely ill informed. There is however a third option.
  
    This one requires an honest to goodness sit down audit that get's into the nitty gritty of what dollar goes where. Once the audit is complete law makers should take a good look at these numbers and see where money is being wasted and cut the budget immediately and without delay. Then the next step is to look at what is being proven to not produce and slash that without question. Having this second step completed it would be wise for the government to then see what the situation looks like from there. Depending on the results the cutting process could be stopped or continue by making the more difficult choices of cutting more good but non essential programs.

   Furthermore it would be wise for the government to remember that nothing is sacred. The Big Three and their budget is susceptible to cutting as any other program. This is what should be done and this is not what is being done.

Constituional Originalism

    For those of you don't follow politics, which if you're reading this is probably about 3% of the group, what I term Constitutional Originalism is the idea that we as a nation must "return to the original meaning of the Constitution." Which sounds great as a slogan but what about in practice? As I have thought about it I don't think that it works out quite as well as one could hope. For what does that phrase mean? Should we not allow women to vote, or only property holding men can vote. Does going back to the original Constitution mean the reinstitution slavery. Perhaps what this phrase means is that we should throw out over two hundred years of jurisprudence. As one can see there is an issue.
 
    However what I have found associated with this term is the phrase "liberal judges" or "judicial activists." These two phrases are used to deride judges that supposedly overstep their bounds as judges. So I think that what the Originalists are really trying to say is they do not like judges who interpret the language and meaning of the Constitution to apply those principles to the modern era. The Originalists want to stop this practice because they disagree with the Supreme Courts decisions. Such disagreement is all well and good but I am here to say that their argument fails to hold water. To illustrate this let's go and look at the Fourth Amendment.

    The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Now I ask you to at this time take an Originalists position and use strictly the words found in this amendment and apply this to wire taps. A phone communication is not a paper, nor an effect. Executing a wiretap is also not an invasion of the person's home seeing that such can be executed via other means. So using an Originalist position I ask should the government be able place a wiretap on your home without a search warrant? If you take only the words found in this amendment then the answer has to be yes. Yet I ask why is this not the case. For that we have to turn and thank an activist Supreme Court.

    The Court case that decided this issue was Katz v US (1967). The Supreme Court ruled that a search warrant must be granted where a person should expect a reasonable amount of privacy. Where does this phrase show up in the Constitution? That's right it doesn't. Now I think that we all can agree that a phone conversation should be kept private and therefore subject to a search warrant. So here is a case where we see Originalism fail.

I conclude by saying that we need to remember the principles behind the amendments more so than the actual words. Once we remember those timeless treasures then we can have an opportunity to make correct decisions. I urge all Originalists to study Constitutional case law and discover just how much judges protect your vaunted rights.

Calming the Storm

As stated in my previous post entitled "The Rage of Nations" I lamented that the people of the United States are so divided that chaos and insanity seems to be reging. (As an aside I would like to apoligize for that more emotionally charged and likely incoherent post. It was an emotional reaction to an emotional topic for me.) Anywho today I will approach the same topic with a bit more logic behind the writing.

I think that we can all agree that, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." In my lifetime I have observed a shifting in the way political hot topics are discussed among the people and among their representatives. The trend has been disturbing. From what I can remember, and from my elders tell me, there was a time when political discourse, while lively and often heated, was still cordial and the seperate groups could reconcile their differences and put the needs of the country above political points. Now however it seems political points are the only motivators for the leaders of our nation. Yet the worst part about this is not that they are making political points with the average American but with the more extreme views of the convention/caucus goers. The result is an obvious one and the more extreme candidates are put up for general election. This therefore leaves most middle of the road Americans out of the process and thereby alienates this group into apathy. The cycle then continues to perpetuate dangerous rhetoric and creates greater divisions within the population of the United States.

To end this dangerous cycle is simple in that it requires only a new political party to emerge which uses reason and sound argumentation rather than emotion and mindless rhetoric to drive its platform. Yet the difficulty lies in the actual implementation of this. It seems that there are far too many politicians who are cowards and would not risk their political careers to better the nation. No, in the years to come we must have the people of this nation arise and become the leaders this nation desperately craves. Middle America should unite and with reason and compromise become a new political power based on toleration and thought. It is time to end our apathy and make this nation not what it once was but what it could be.

The rage of nations

There is a lot of anger in the political arena these days. In fact to me there seems to be so much rage that it could cause one do ask, "Why do the nations so furiously rage together and why do the people imagine a vain thing?" It causes one to ask where has reason gone and when will he be back? Also will he bring compassion come with him or will she stay away as well?

American political discourse has entered into an era of extremism and vanity. It seems that now we vote for the person who only looks good and who gives us promises that stroke out vanity and pride. This extremism will continue to run its course into more hatefilled and eventually violent rhetoric. Such words may not condemn a man but certainly some day the words will poison a heart and blood will spill. How long will this cauldron of hate boil until its contents spill over? The answer is not long enugh.

My fellow Americans something must be done about the insanity and that is to restore reason to his proper place and to allow compassion to return to her throne. We through reason must quell the banshees of extremism and create revolution of reasoning and tolerance where the people not the parties rule.

Sadly as far as I can see there is but one option and that is for the average American to leave their party and creat another one based upon rational thought and cordial but spirited discourse.  This has been happening already in fact over 30% of Americans now consider themselves independents.

I think that it is high time for a new party to emerge.

Does the Tea Party have power?

    I have had a hard time as of late to pick a topic to write on. There are so many to choose from. I think that now I have officially narrowed it down andhave finally found something worth writing about. That is the Tea Party. As I consider the 2010 elections I am convinced that the Tea Party has very little power. I will take as my example the Nevada senate election where Harry Reid could have been ousted and the Alaska senate election where the Tea Party candidate lost to another Republican.

    Earlier in the year Republicans were poised to oust the sitting Senate President of the United States of America. Obviously they failed. The question that should be considered is why? It is because the candidate that the Republicans put up was a bit far to the right on the political spectrum. This candidate was in fact the Tea Party favorite, which a was a major reason that she got out of convention. She won over the more moderate candidates who in early were double digits ahead of Reid.To me this is a very clear indication that the people of the United States of America do not want the Tea Party. Their politics are too right wing and do not reflect American values of compromise and moderation. Rather their politics are unyielding and crazed in their approach. That said the Tea Party and their candidate lost what could have been a major victory and could have turned the tide in their favor. They didn't and the senate remains the same.

    The second person I would like to point out is the war in Alaska that was fought between the Tea Party candidate, as supported by former Governor Palin, and his Republican contender. After a recount it was found that the non-Tea Partier had won the election, as previous counts made clear. This single even shows that the Tea Party and their quasi-leaders don't have the kind of clout they proclaim to have. How can they if their candidates cannot beat a hated Senator or win within a state that a major Tea Partier was a Governor.

    Now the counter is that they did infact gain some seats for candidates that were "Tea Partiers" but if one were to take a closer look at this claim many of these candidates were viable candidates before aligning themselves with this new found populist movement. So it seems that the Tea Party had relatively little incluence in those regards as well. I think that the race with Rand Paul is the most telling instance for this point.

    With all that said I think that this is the time for a major shake up but not one that leads to a widening political gap between left and right. No now is the time for a central party to emerge and take control of the political arena.

Video Game Character Development: Stuck in 8-bit mode!

Let me preface this by stating I am a huge fan of video games (VG). what did you think that this blog was all about politics please I'm not that crazy! Being the fan that I am I love to see innovation in the form and I personally believe that VGs could become an honest to goodness art form. There are however large and glaring problems that few, if any, developers have tried to rectify. One that I will address here is the lack of character development and death.

To begin with let's consider the characters. The vast majority of them are incredibly dull. Their main problem is that they have little depth. Where is the inner conflict? Where is the turmoil? Let's look at a classic fantasy story line. A rather unimportant farmboy, or commoner, is living his life. Suddenly his villaged is attacked by monster they had never seen before! What does our intrepid young hero do in almost every game. He charges right into the fray! Weapon flying around as if he had been working a sword for years, which he hasn't. No qualms, no fear, and often little shock at seeing nightmares come to life. How is this a natural reaction? Oh that's right...it isn't. Most farmboys seeing their nightmares killing before their eyes would be puking their guts out and trembling in fear, or running blindly for their lives. In the event that the boy does pick up a weapon the only way he will get out of there alive is by shear dumb luck or by some more experienced person saving him. If a development studio were to add this to the beginning of a game I think that a bit of character believablity would be added.

However there is more to a character then going from a farm boy to a warrior. No there is also the change in his character as certain events assault him. Say he finds out that the evil guy is hunting for him specifically. Out of all the other people the main antagonist is going after him. How should he react? Often there is no reaction just a throw away line and the character remains unchanged. The reaction should be is the charcter should at first be fearful and yet also perhaps a bit prideful. Of  course I have been a bit...generic but most avid gamers can think to a game that they played, enjoyed, and had similar elements that I am describing. There is something that is unforgivable. That is when a formerly trusted comrade betrays them and there is no pain, no anger just a simple matter of fact said person dies. I'm looking at you COD: MW2. What there should be is a good cut scene going through and the characters arguing, debating, wondering, then coming to the conclusion to kill or capture their former comrade.

There is a third point to character development and that is the necessity for a large and dangerous character flaw! I have seen no video game that has done this well.  Sure we have some jerkish anti-heroes but their flaw is more endearing and BA than it it is potentially fatal to him. Look at the popular video games of the day no character really has a large character flaw that they overcome through the process of the game.

At this point the detractor might say, "Ah but Scott the point of games is to be fun and enjoyable. To make you feel like the character." I respond with of course you are correct in that assessment but simply because we are to control the character in the action sequences does not mean that we should sacrifice the character when going through narration. Many FPS, action, and RPGs all have cut scenes few RPGs have the "morality choice" therefore to make the game more interesting the character should have a flaw to overcome. Something that is inherit within both himself but also humanity. The easiest is pride. All of humanity battles this vice and is the down fall of many. Why not have a VG character have the same flaw that he has to battle until he overcomes it at the end of the game or series. This would add a whole new element to the game.

To close I would like to say that I am not disparaging older games because they did not have this. They were a lot of fun to play and I still play. Neither am I saying that all games should have deep characters sometimes that is just not necessary. What I am saying is that there is a lack of character development for games that would lend themselves to such. What I am further saying is that this is a glaring problem for video games, on the whole, where such is possible. I think it's time for a revolution where character takes its place along side gameplay and graphics.

(Also as a bit of a teaser I will look later at other forms of art that had the same problems. That as well will come sometime after finals)

The death of Osama bin Laden

Okay I will admit that the news of Osama’s death is wonderful news. I will also admit that I am saddened that it hadn’t happened sooner. There is, however, a problem that I have with some people’s reactions. The problem stems from congratulating Obama for his death. The main reason for this is the simple poor logic involved in these congratulations.

If one were to look at this news they would realize that the President has very little control over these strikes. Yes he has some but the real congratulations should be given to our covert operatives that actually took Osama down! These are the ones that did the work. These are the ones that made things happen. The President though has done little. Not because he is poor or that he doesn’t care but simply because he doesn’t have the time to work in these day to day operations. Further we have to consider that there has been a lot of groundwork laid to bring down this monster. For the moment my friends I ask you to consider this simple fact and neither put blame on one for his failure or put praise on another for this success. The real success comes from those that gathered the information and acted on that information to bring down this monster. To assert otherwise would do nothing more than drive a wedge between the American people, something that for now we do not need.

Once finals are over I will take sometime out of my open days to discuss this and immigration from a secular standpoint later.