I don’t want to be a politician. I don’t think I would like what it does to you. You either stay strong and inviolate and you maybe break, or you begin to flex, and maybe lose sight of what drove you here in the first place.
And it must be that you are driven here. Look at the sort of people that want to be in politics. It’s like they couldn’t make it as actors, had zero talent as musicians, have no idea what real power is, and decided politics must be it.
No, the only people deserving of power are those who do not desire it: those who would rather lead peaceful and productive lives protecting their loved ones and being good neighbours to everyone else. People who understand values and morality and in the knowing understand also that these things are relative and must be treated with respect and great care. People who know how to say no, thank you. And how to say no.
That article I read about Stephen Harper has left me thinking. We can only judge another by their actions, and we will only ever see the actions the press chooses to show us. We will always stuggle to get the true measure of a man or woman, those of us that care to make the effort.
I would like to meet Harper. I’d like to have a half-hour conversation with him. I’d like to look him in the eye when he tells me his views on same-sex marriage, education and foreign policy with the US.
But all I can tell for sure is what I hear from the rabid and inflamatory press. He’s Conservative, he is prone to angry outbursts, he has never done well as a member of a team. He vociferously opposed abortion until popular opinion and his party made him reconsider. He looks down with open scorn on the poor. His views are strong and, to my mind, narrow minded. His arrogance is well documented, as is his contempt for the press.
In fact the only positive thing you can say for him is that he is strong willed.
If he had grown up as a more well-rounded individual, with positive exposure to the issues he is ignorant of, then I may very well have seen in him real leader material. Strong, but broad-minded. Willful, but aware. But that isn’t the Harper we have.
To me a leader must weld a thousand viewpoints into a workable focus. From disparate opinions must come progress approaching concensus. A leader must have amazing agility of mind to bring unity from chaos. To govern rather than dictate. Leading in a democracy is a challenge because it demands that you inspire others, who may not always agree with you, to follow you anyway.
Martin did not do this. I can’t see Harper doing this. And I have yet to see Leyton do this, but neither have I seen him drop the ball. Mostly he seems to be relying on the fact he isn’t the other guys.
Millions will not vote on the 23rd. They have no faith in the effectiveness of Canada’s parties to deal with anything more profound than cutting each other down, using issues as ammo. They just can’t be bothered taking part in a system that doesn’t seem to represent them. I agree almost completely.
We’re desperate for strong leadership that is above mudslinging. above twentieth century politics, and above reproach.
Some worry what will become of us when so few are willing to speak up that we are left in the hands of the only misfits and miscreants that do. Some say we are already there.
So I go vote in the hope that I may help start the avalanche of a new age of strong common sense leadership. I don’t really hold much hope. But what else can I do? Not vote? There are too many misfits and miscreants out there who do vote, and I can’t just hand the country over to them without registering my single strident voice of protest.
And if someone stepped up to me and said, “By George, man, you’ve got it bang on,” and handed me a million dollars to mount a campaign?
I wouldn’t say quite yet that I’ve been driven. But there is out there the rumble of the offer of a ride.