It takes courage to tell people what they don’t want to
hear. Often times doing the right thing is not doing the easy thing. Politicians
struggle with this and usually fail. It is a rare politician who tells an
inconvenient truth to his constituents. With good reason; said politicians are
usually not reelected. And that serves to reinforce the problem.
“You see, I told you not to tell people that bridge needs to
be replaced. You deserved to lose!”
“But it’s going to collapse and kill people!”
“That’s somebody else’s problem.”
The fault is not really the politician’s. The fault is the
voters. As Walt Kelly’s character said “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We
enable this behavior. If you are not
willing to vote for, or even listen to someone who is telling you bad news,
then you are in trouble. If you only listen to a news source that reports the
stories you want to hear, then you are deluding yourself. This problem is not
limited to one political party. It applies to liberals and conservatives,
Libertarians, Greens, and independents. Denial is a natural human condition.
In the 19th Century weavers, textile workers, and
others were frightened that the industrial revolution taking their jobs away.
These “Luddites” went around breaking into factories and smashing machines. It
had to have been terrifying seeing a mob coming for your factory. But as we all
know, the Luddites did not win. The Industrial Revolution happened despite
their best efforts. Mobs are never a good thing and they usually do long term
damage to their own interests.
We need to be able to take our medicine. You cannot make an
informed decision if you are only listening to half of the information. But
telling it like it is requires courage. It is going to make you unpopular.
Jesus told truth to power. Those powers had him crucified. Galileo made the
true observation that the Earth was not the center of the universe. They locked
him up. The emperor is not going to reward you for telling him that he is not
wearing any clothes. Courage is knowing you are going to take a hit and doing
the right thing anyway.
History is made by feather-rufflers.
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