House of Eratosthenes

A thought. Because, haven’t you noticed lately, when you take the time to hear-out someone’s opinion, you find it’s nothing more than an opinion about who else should not be allowed to have any opinions?

I’m sorry this has to be said, it should be obvious.

A leader takes charge of the situation — AND — takes responsibility for the outcome. If you do those two things, there aren’t too many other requirements you have to fulfill to be a leader. That whole “inspires others” thing? Seriously overrated.

If you do not take charge of the situation, but you do take responsibility for the outcome, including for the negative outcome, that is not a leader. That is a doormat.

If you do not take charge of the situation and you do not take responsibility for the outcome, that is called a bystander.

If you take charge of the situation, constantly fighting, constantly starting arguments, to make sure nobody else can have any influence at all, but you do NOT take any responsibility for the outcome, then that is not a leader, or a follower, or a doormat, or a bystander. That is what we call a PROBLEM.

Most people…with opinions…are PROBLEMs.

Sometime over the last thirty years or so, it has become fashionable to cloak these opinions about which persons or groups should be entirely defrocked of any influence — as some sort of solution to the stated problem that’s actually going to carry us in a positive direction, somehow. Even Charles Krauthammer fell victim to it six years ago, when writing about “death counseling”:

Let’s see if we can have a reasoned discussion about end-of-life counseling. We might start by asking Sarah Palin to leave the room.

Doctor Zero at Hot Air retorted:

Let me dispense with the most controversial part of Krauthammer’s recent Town Hall column first: this condescending nonsense about asking Palin to “leave the room” while “we have a reasoned discussion about end-of-life counseling.” There’s only one group of people who needs to leave the room during that discussion, and it’s the socialist zealot in the White House, along with the craven cowards in his party. They’ve already demonstrated a remarkable gift for swiftly leaving the room when people start asking tough questions, so we’ll hardly notice when they slink out. Maybe while they’re gone, they could find the billions in Cash for Clunkers money that vanished into thin air.

Those Facebook pages she’s tossing around like ninja throwing stars are eloquent proof that no one has the right to pat Sarah Palin on the head and send her out of the room, while the grown-ups settle down to serious talk. She isn’t just writing snarky rants. She’s providing both devastatingly effective criticism, and substantial policy alternatives. It’s fairly obvious the White House paid a great deal of attention to her infamous “death panel” column.

But let’s not get all hung up on specific issues, or identities of persons who should leave rooms, or which critics are saying so. The problem is with this smug feeling of satisfaction that a perfect, or merely adequate, solution has been has been defined by the critic, when all the critic has done is select the pariah-of-the-moment. It is a pronouncement not of any sort of positive vision, or credible strategy, but merely of distribution of influence: Infinite quota for this person over here, zero for that person over there.

And the problem’s solved!! Or something. But, these types very seldom come back to check on the progress. You don’t see them coming out of the kitchen to ask the diners how it tastes. When & if they ever do, it’s just to assign blame yet again (H/T Chicks on the Right):

President Obama wrapped up a day he began with an angry and frustrated reaction to the mass killings in Charleston, S.C., by acknowledging that he has been unable to change the culture of polarization and gridlock in Washington.

But he also challenged Democratic supporters to do their part to make the political changes rather than remain disillusioned about the inability of the nation’s capital to respond to gun violence and other problems.

“When I ran in 2008, I in fact did not say I would fix it. I said we could fix it,” Obama told an audience of about 250 at a fundraising event here at the stately hillside home of film mogul Tyler Perry. “I didn’t say, ‘Yes, I can.’ I said, ‘Yes, we can.'”

The problem is always “I don’t have enough influence yet,” or “those who are getting in my way, still have too much.” It occurs to me that if President Obama can hide behind those, then anyone should be able to do likewise, and at any time. I daresay no homo sapiens has enjoyed a greater opportunity to solve problems by monologuing, be they living or dead, ever, since the Earth’s crust cooled.

Leaders don’t sit around just waiting for good things to happen, so they can hog all the credit, and then grasping at straws finding someone to blame when something bad happens. That is not what real leaders do. They look for what is in their control, they seek to maximize that control, they make commitments based on what is in that circle of control. And then they take ownership of the outcome.

If there is a problem because someone else also has control, then they approach that entity with rationality and reason, look for common ground in the visions, present some compelling arguments about why their strategy might be the best way to get there. Or, if the visions have no commonality because of differing interests, they negotiate. To defrock that other party of any influence at all, to get their own stuff done, is something real leaders don’t do except perhaps only as a last resort.

When you see a guy who uses that as his “go-to” way of dealing with problems…what you’re looking at, is the problem itself. Not a real leader.

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Leaders, Doormats, Bystanders and ProblemsSaturday, June 20th, 2015

Leaders, Doormats, Bystanders and Problems
Saturday, June 20th, 2015