The Most Promising Method of Securing a Virtuous and Morally Stable People is to Elect Virtuous Leaders.
Where are the virtuous leaders? Where can they be found? Instead of leading the people in the cause of liberty, in government, they are business leaders, education leaders, religious leaders, etc. Why? Skousen makes the point that elected positions that are posts of honor or power AND posts of profit lead to the most corrupt, scheming individuals to seek those positions. It is not that good men don’t seek these positions as well, but the wicked men pull out all stops, they hit below the belt, so to speak, to ensure their victory. They are tireless in their own selfishness and self-aggrandizing. An honest and virtuous man, on the other hand does not resort to such tactics and unfortunately, if the people aren’t careful and don’t educate themselves, they will tend to seek the dishonest man because he is not made out to be so dishonest by his opponent.
By the way, here is what I would propose to fix this problem if I had some power to do so. Instead of allowing congress to set their own salaries, perhaps a good idea might be to amend the constitution to state that the salaries for all elected government officials will be equal to the median national income, or the average income in their respective states. An amendment like this of course would never come through congress as it sits currently, but 2/3 of the several states can, according to Article Five of the US Constitution, call a convention to amend the constitution without congress. This would not fix all problems, there are many state and local officials that are overpaid, but a similar amendment in state constitutions and local charters would bring about the same effect. Just an idea.
Samuel Adams is quoted in The 5000 Year Leap as saying “…the truest friend to…liberty…so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.” It is no longer OK for us to choose the lesser of two evils. It is time for us to seek out the best men and women to be our rulers (a ruler should literally be a ruler, someone for everyone to measure themselves against, the best of the best). We may have to look outside of the mainstream. The criteria is set by the Lord, “…thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers…” (Exodus 18:21) and “…He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.” (2 Samuel 23:3)
3 comments:
I agree, we will most likely have to look outside the mainstream for leaders of quality. I used to vote by party for the "lesser of two evils" in hopes of winning but I will vote for who I feel is best rather then the party out of fear of "splitting the vote" and the greater evil winning. If more people would vote for who they really want in office (even if they think that person not likely to win)then I think it more likely that the unlikely canidate would win! We need to stop trying to always be on the "winning" side and Chose The Right.
We can vote all we want and for who we want, however, we have precious few citizens who are virtuous or moral, let alone political leaders.
"But neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt."
Samual Adams, p 59
Perhaps there are more citizens who are 'virtuous' and 'moral' than we think. Perhaps they're just uneducated and afraid. I think that those of us who are virtuos and moral should run for political office if we can, thus expanding our circle of influence and perhaps bring more people to the light.
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