What is a true leader ? Today on President’s Day, it is the perfect time to reflect on what makes a true leader. Leaders are not born. They are made. Look at the men who rose to the occasion to fight for and create the first democracy in the world ? It would have been a lot easier for them to have rested on their laurels and continued to have life made easy by the British, at the time the most powerful country in the world. Those Founders had a vision: one where the people could have a say in their own governance, a government ruled by elected people opposed to monarchies and merely the rich. They sacrificed their time, money, efforts and opportunities in hopes that something better would come from their efforts. Leaders do things that go beyond their own bottom lines and self interest. They venture out of their comfort zone to make the world a better place for others.
Today, I am saddened by the 80s mentality of Wall Street greed where money is king. Twenty years after that famous movie the only thing that has changed is the fact that this greed has gone from an admired trait to a pervasive sickness. Case in point, I know very few lawyers who will do anything unless it involves money. You can’t get them to drive to Austin or their state capitol to lobby for good laws because they aren’t getting paid. They could care less even when the laws being passed hurt their clients. This isn’t just in Texas; it is nationwide. Kids just aren’t graduating from lawschool with the right principles. Everyone just wants to make money, justice is a hoped for side benefit for most. Lawyers come from an old school of thought where your license allowed you to make money but more importantly it shouldered you with a responsibility to make the world a better place armed with the power of the law. Of all the lawyers I know besides myself I can only say that Chris Hoover , Charles Kingsbury and Larry Boyd are the only DWI lawyers in Texas that have genuinely cared enough to venture out to Austin on a regular basis voluntarily when it really mattered even though it didn’t make us any money (many of the laws we fought for meant losing money as lawyers but better for the citizens). To me, we are the Presidents of the Constitutional Law crowd- trying to make a difference. Even on a national level, it seems damn near impossible to meet a DWI lawyer who cares about fighting for good laws. I don’t know a single one outside of Texas besides Steve Oberman of Tennessee and Patrick McPherson of Hawaii that is involved legislatively. So there you have it folks, out of this whole country less than 2 handfuls really care about leadership when it comes to DWI justice where the laws are made and DWI is the number one crime in America (in terms of numbers of arrests).
On a personal level (maybe it’s because I am surrounded by lawyers and red neck rich wannabes), I am disgusted by the pure selfishness of people when it comes to their government. I am so sick of people crying for capital gains tax cuts and at the same time screaming about paying for welfare yet preaching abstinence among teenagers. That makes a whole lot of sense now doesn’t it ? Why is it that your “wear their religion on their sleeve” right wing Republicans can’t see their own hypocrisy ? They cry for teaching religion in the schools (creationism, such a joke) yet can’t teach basic human decency at home. They think as Sean Hannity said “government’s job is the national defense.” They forget that even monarchs took care of the mentally sick, disabled and diseased. It’s just sick to see a cycle of intellectual inferiorism be perpetuated all in the name of the Bible. Ugh. My leadership exercise this President’s Day is to proudly stand up and call bullshit. This country would be a lot better off if people would start thinking about their fellow human beings and ask how to make this country better. As a great leader named John F. Kennedy once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” I will end on this note. Happy President’s Day in honor of the many leaders before us who put others first to make this country a better place. Young people, strive to define a better generation. It shouldn’t be that hard.
Today, I am saddened by the 80s mentality of Wall Street greed where money is king. Twenty years after that famous movie the only thing that has changed is the fact that this greed has gone from an admired trait to a pervasive sickness. Case in point, I know very few lawyers who will do anything unless it involves money. You can’t get them to drive to Austin or their state capitol to lobby for good laws because they aren’t getting paid. They could care less even when the laws being passed hurt their clients. This isn’t just in Texas; it is nationwide. Kids just aren’t graduating from lawschool with the right principles. Everyone just wants to make money, justice is a hoped for side benefit for most. Lawyers come from an old school of thought where your license allowed you to make money but more importantly it shouldered you with a responsibility to make the world a better place armed with the power of the law. Of all the lawyers I know besides myself I can only say that Chris Hoover , Charles Kingsbury and Larry Boyd are the only DWI lawyers in Texas that have genuinely cared enough to venture out to Austin on a regular basis voluntarily when it really mattered even though it didn’t make us any money (many of the laws we fought for meant losing money as lawyers but better for the citizens). To me, we are the Presidents of the Constitutional Law crowd- trying to make a difference. Even on a national level, it seems damn near impossible to meet a DWI lawyer who cares about fighting for good laws. I don’t know a single one outside of Texas besides Steve Oberman of Tennessee and Patrick McPherson of Hawaii that is involved legislatively. So there you have it folks, out of this whole country less than 2 handfuls really care about leadership when it comes to DWI justice where the laws are made and DWI is the number one crime in America (in terms of numbers of arrests).
On a personal level (maybe it’s because I am surrounded by lawyers and red neck rich wannabes), I am disgusted by the pure selfishness of people when it comes to their government. I am so sick of people crying for capital gains tax cuts and at the same time screaming about paying for welfare yet preaching abstinence among teenagers. That makes a whole lot of sense now doesn’t it ? Why is it that your “wear their religion on their sleeve” right wing Republicans can’t see their own hypocrisy ? They cry for teaching religion in the schools (creationism, such a joke) yet can’t teach basic human decency at home. They think as Sean Hannity said “government’s job is the national defense.” They forget that even monarchs took care of the mentally sick, disabled and diseased. It’s just sick to see a cycle of intellectual inferiorism be perpetuated all in the name of the Bible. Ugh. My leadership exercise this President’s Day is to proudly stand up and call bullshit. This country would be a lot better off if people would start thinking about their fellow human beings and ask how to make this country better. As a great leader named John F. Kennedy once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” I will end on this note. Happy President’s Day in honor of the many leaders before us who put others first to make this country a better place. Young people, strive to define a better generation. It shouldn’t be that hard.
Comments
Thanks for posting!
This is a great site you have. It's my first visit. I really happy to hear the way you speak about pushing for better laws on a volunteer basis. It is true that selfishness and greed have caused many problems for our country as well as nations in history.
In your personal section at the bottom, I agree with you that it is hypocritical to ask government to back off of certain socially supportive policies when you yourself are not stepping up to provide an alternative. I do have a hard time seeing the tie between preaching abstinence and crying about paying for welfare. It seems to me that if people did practice abstinence outside of marriage there would be a lot less disease and fewer unwanted pregnancies - which would lead to less need for public welfare to support unwanted babies or people needing care for sexually transmitted diseases.
That issue aside, I specifically wanted to address the comment about creationism in schools. I'm not certain what you have been taught in school, raised to believe or read or heard on your own. I don't know what your position is regarding the theory of evolution. As of right now, the majority of schools teach Darwinian evolution as the only possible explanation for the emergence of life on this planet, despite myriad scientific facts that poke huge holes in the theory.
Among the scientific holes in Darwinian evolution are:
1) Lack of fossil evidence to support the change of one species into an entirely different species.
-There are no "transitional" fossils.
-In the Cambrian level of the earth, scientists see an explosion of variations of life - making Darwin's tree look more like a lawn with individual blades of grass.
2) The experiment with the supposed pre-life earth atmospheric gases that created organic material when struck with electricity contained gases that scientists now believe were not present in the early earth atmosphere.
-Even if they WERE present, since no one really knows with absolute certainty, the creation of organic material is a far cry from the creation of life. If a cell dies and you break it into pieces and put it in a jar, you essentially have all the building blocks of life – but the cell is not going to magically assemble itself and become a living cell again over time.
3)Evolution supposes that single celled organisms are simple in construction. We now know that they are as complex as walled cities. In fact, nanoscientists consider the flagella (this is like it’s flippers or motor – how it gets around) on a type of single celled organism one of the most complex machines ever created – doing something like 20,000 RPMs. They can’t figure out how to recreate it.
-We used to believe that atoms were the smallest unit. Now, we can split atoms, and there’s more. We still have not gotten down to the smallest building block of anything.
4) Information does not create itself. For instance, if you have instructions and ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, you can easily double the chocolate chips or remove the chocolate chips - - but you can't make oatmeal raisin cookies. You neither have instructions nor ingredients. Similarly, a fish has DNA instructions and building blocks to create fins and flippers, but does not have instructions and building blocks to create feet and lungs. A fish may lose its eyesight or pigment by living in a cave - but this requires no additional information.
I challenge you, as an educated individual - able to begin a scientific experiment without bias or a predetermined conclusion, to look more closely at Darwinian evolution and see if it doesn't take just as much, or more faith than it does to believe in an intelligent designer. I think you may just find that while you will probably still hold to the belief that the Bible should not be taught in schools to preserve freedom of religion - - we need to teach an alternative to this very outdated and scientifically flawed theory. The theory of an intelligent designer behind it all is just as good or better - scientifically speaking.
Thanks for posting - - and I encourage you to continue fighting for the betterment of our society!
PS - Lee Strobel, a former atheist (who became an atheist as a result of being taught Darwinian evolution in school), who is also Yale educated in law and a renowned journalist discusses this issue very thoroughly in his book, "Case for a Creator". I highly recommend it and would be very interested to hear your thoughts on Darwinian evolution once you've read it.
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