When someone attains a position of prominence or leadership, we have always assumed that a certain level of responsibility goes with it. They speak not just as one person but for a position, a cause, a group.
Their words are heard differently ... they have more weight. If they use words that suggest hatred, they make hatred acceptable and encourage hatred in those who listen. If they use words that suggest intolerance, they encourage intolerance and make it acceptable.
Our words empower others; they encourage ways of thinking and courses of action. We would not speak if we did not want others to listen and believe. As leaders, what we suggest as ways of dealing with the world become viable ways of dealing with the world to those who listen. If we suggest extreme actions, extreme actions appear acceptable to those who listen.
Leaders know this and responsible leaders are careful of the words they use, knowing full well the possible ramifications of their suggestions.
Those who would build their leadership on fear and frustration, anger and misplaced action, use words to incite. They are the demagogues. They feed the flames and then often deny that their words lead to violent action ... no responsibility, no accountability. This is cowardice and irresponsible leadership.
History is full of demagogues ... Hitler and Mussolini for example.
And in America we tell people not to trust society to provide stability but encourage them to buy guns. Wow, what personal power. These are not guns for hunting animals, or to put food on the family table, these are guns to kill and maim, to intimidate and seek vengeance.
These demagogues arise in a society that deifies the military and violent solutions through wars and who train their young to kill.
Where is the responsible leadership in that?
Bob Passi
Baxter
Comments (25)
Add commentblack panther
and how about those fine gentlemen that called for the killing of white babies in front of a polling place while holding on to bats....and then the left looked the other way...hmmm!
I say shame on the media and the left for turning a tragedy into something political.
some folks just don't get it
Mr. Passi,
The Bible says wisdom is a virture.. Lacking wisdom as the left does is a major flaw. They always change the message, so they are always off message, like you.
This young man was another great product of public education, lack of christian upbringing, a perfect example of a society where the state is responsible for everything, thus the individual does not exist in the lefts macro-idealogy and individual responsibility is selffishness.
I love when people blame the shooter not gun, the gun not the drug problem that are left coasts are obsessed with. The left incessant use of cocaine is destroying people. Yes, There are a few messed up people on the right, but the left has some serious moral, ethical, and spiritual problems it must address if they don't want to live Venezuela, but I suppose they love Venezuela!
How many guns did the Muslims that killed 4,000 on 9/11 have???? Yes, guns are dangerous, they should be used wisely to take down food and defend oneself. If Griffin had a gun on her, she might have saved lives. Guns have saved far more lives than they have taken. Louis and Clark never would have made it with a gun.. You would never be here without a gun that your forefathers own. Get over it, guns will be here, no one will give up theres! Why, there too valuable!!
Its sounds like Mr. Passi
Its sounds like Mr. Passi believes we should become an autocratic nation that tries to prevent its evil populous from doing anything bad by stripping the individuals of all rights.
You also believe vibrant political debate is hazardous and free speech probably should be stripped from our constitutional rights!
You also believe our 2nd amendment should be stripped because it was ill-conceived by our forefathers.
I recommed you read some books by De Tocqueville and about "rule of the Masses" and tyranny.
If you seriously think that changing laws to shut leaders up and taking their guns is going to some how make our society safer, you are seriously underestimating the vast majority of Americans. Blaming this crime on the right Mr. Passi is only inflaming the gun-toting class of America more, who are responsible and legal gun owners. Your implied message encourages hatred and encourages citizens to buy more guns and ammo and makes the NRA that much more valuable.
Wow
ecocafemx you are scary!
Ecocafemx, You're Right!
Dear Mr. Ecocafemx,
When I read what you had to say, all I could say to myself was, "here, here!". You hit the nail right on the head. The libs are all getting excited and they are gonna call for taking our guns. Well, DO NOT TAKE MY GUN! What the libs refuse to accept is that the more strict the gun law, the more gun crime there is. You can look it up.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/11782_20deadliestgunstatesfrommississ...
This just goes to show you, when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns. Look at the list. The states with the loosest gun laws have little violent crime. Arizona is a good example. Pert near anyone can get a gun but there gun murder rate is way below mississipi - just look at that list!
The truth of the matter is that the more people are carrying guns the safer everybody are. Even the poor jewish congress gal had her own glock pistol. i just be she wishes she had been carrying it on saturday. i think that if everyone was carrying, there would be hardly no crime at all because if that young crazy had known that lots of folks in the crowd were carrying then he would have left the folks alone
and another thing. it is shamful the way the libs and the lib media is going after Rush and Glen Beck and Sarah Palin and Sharron Angel. Like its there fault or something. Poor Rush has suffered enough, leave him alone. Rush is right when he says that we are now the majority and most folks thing just like us and maybe though this is tragic maybe this will scare the libs into behaving and respect the majority in ths country
and another thing, the worst thing illinois could do after raising taxes is to say no more death penalty. that will surely increase crime. because guns dont kill people, people do. even if that crazy in arizona didnt have a gun he would have found a way to do it all anyway, that is just human nature for you.
DNTMG
Jason Baca
Her name is US Representative Gabrielle Giffords, not Griffin. There is no left of right when one of our elected officials is shot in an attempted assassination. They represent all of us. There is always another election to replace candidates you don't agree with. Postive statements trump negative any day.
Her name is Gabby and she is a loyal American public servant.
James Carville
James Carville stated on CNN that this guy in Arizona was just a nut and he would still be a nut if there were no Democrats, Republicans, cable tv, talk radio or the Tea Party.
LLR
I know that, you know that, heck, everybody knows that. But how else are the leftist pundits going to score any political points if we allow commonsense to rule the day? ;)
Tripwire, Dont We No It!
Dear Tripwire,
When I read what you said, I just had to nod and say to myself, "sir, you GOT THAT RIGHT"!!!
If anyone is owed an apology here it is surely Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. I hate libs so much. Damn right this guy was a nut. In fact, he was PROBABLY a lib! Going after one of his own.
I sure didn't care much for what Obummer had to say about it all, just tooting his own horn. He is not even american and he is a muslim so why is he quoting scripture anyway.
But I did see Sarah Palin's message. It was sure moving. I can't beleive how bad she has been treated over all this. I think the libs are wrong (they are ALWAYS wrong) and they owe her and apology for sure.
I sure hope they dont start passing bills to take our 3rd amendement rights to a gun away. there has been so many laws passed to strip away our rights that i feel like they must have felt in the old soviet evil empire!
DNTMG
Third Amendment
Is about housing troops in private homes.
Especially for Do_Not_Take_My_Gun
Dear Mr. "Do_Not_Take_My_Gun",
I do not know exactly where I fit in the line of political titles. Maybe it's republican, or conservative, or redneck, or libertarian, but I know that I am a constitutionalist. And because of the constitution we all have the right to free speech. One great gift we have in the United States of America is the right (at this time at least) to belong to and support any political party or cause. I have great dislike for liberal views and wish that there was some way to get the liberals or would they prefer being called progressives to come our way. I do not however as you stated " hate libs so much"! To have that attitude, you are showing yourself to be a fool and one of the problems we have in this great republic of ours. I know that it is difficult to get either side to listen to the other but if we would at least be civil to each other the blame game just might get better!
Dear Mr. Eyolf...
Well, when I read what you had to say, Mr. Eyolf, I said to myself, "now, their is a man that I dont understand" because the words are awful flowery, etc. etc. But I also said to myself, "there goes a lib if I ever saw one!". Cause the libs tend to have the big vocabularly and the fancy educations. Finding the smooth underbelly of the porky pig, you might even say!
But I will say this Mr. Eyolf, you make a good point. I have been too harsh on the libs and perhaps even on the democrat party. I imagine there is some of them who even do some decensy. Some of the time the libs have even gone so far.
But I did also say to myself, "Mr. Eyolf is all wrong about one think, and this is Sean Hannity"!!!! I agree with you that the Kieth Obermann is a useful pile of doggy _____. I don't even even want to say the word because this is a family newspaper and I dont want to get kicked out. But Sean Hannity is the best journalist we have seen in this country in a hundred years, easy. It is no lie when they say on Fox news "fair and balanced" and it is the truth as someone who listens to them faithfully. He always presents both sides and lets the viewer make up his own mine.
It is true that it suffered for quite a spell with that ultralib with the glasses, i did not trust him at all and now i forget his name sherlock holmes or alan holmes or something like that. Praise god that they got him off there.
I am so pleased with Hannity and in fact with Fox that that that's all I even watch now. But that is a whole another story.
Anyway thank you for pointing out to me that i should be more toleraant of the libs. However i do take exemption with you and your mean words about sarah palin, no one seems to understand that she is the true victim in all of this and if the libs would just stop talking about taking away our guns and impingeing on our personal liberties, then we might get somewhere with and i disagree when you say it never end, when we have a permanent republican majority at last then there will be peace i beleive. I do not know if that is exactly what you mean by "perjorative" or not.
DNTMG
Come clean!
annie and kitty working in cahoots!
"annie and kitty working in
"annie and kitty working in cahoots!"
About what, Dean?
A new kind of snowboot?
What's a cahoot?
wolf
DNTMG can't possibly be real!
I think it's kinda like a
I think it's kinda like a bong, Chey.
Tie-dyed bong.
Tie-dyed bong.
My friends, my friends...
When I read about my friend Mr. Dean and his bong I said to myself, "I dont even know what that is!" but i thing it might have something to do with smoking marigunana. All I can say is that is the kind of think that happens when the democrat party comes into power.
As they say, "it all flows downhill". Therefore even if in crow wing county we still have the smarts to resist the democrat homosexual gun-seizing mission it still flows downhill from washington DC and stinks us all up.
But I would remind my friends that Bob from Baxter started this forum for talk about leadership and i support what he says 100%. Look again and read his wisdom words and thing a bit more about mussolini and hitler. At the end of the day what were they but dems, libs? And what they done is similar to what obummer is doing to us. And another think. You want to know what the three of them have in common? Yes it should be pretty dang clear right away to smart folks that the three of them have in common that none of them was born in the united states of america.
I dont speak for everyone here especially the libs like wolf and ptweed but i speak for myself when i say that i love america and think the united states of american president should be a friggin american for g__'s sake!
so lets keep the talk about what this forum is about which is how to avoid nazism and the democrat party in the "good 'ol US of A"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DNTMG
DNTMG
Thanks for the compliment!
I was being ironical, mr. ptweed
Dear Mr. PTweed,
When I read what your wrote, I had to say to myself, "now, that man does not understand a sarcastical comment when he sees one!"
So, to set the record straitght, I must say that i did not intend it to be a so-called "compliment" when I called you a lib. Liberalism is responsible for all of the problems in this country today, such as having health care shoved down our throats. Not to mention how expensive it will be to add all these people to the health insurance rolls.
I would like to quote a great american, that and is Ronald C. Reagen. President Reagen said, if you want health insurance, than, to use his words, you "pull yourself up by the bootstrats" and you go out and get a job where there are full benefits such as employee paid health insurance. if you don't want to do that, than don't complain about it. the last think in the world we want is for the big ol' goverment to be paying for all that.
But anyway even though you are a lib I do kind of like you and this is america. keep reading these bloggs and perhaps you will see the error of your thinging.
DNTMG
Aitkin
dntmg
Are you for real or just pulling our leg?
Reagan's son said recently that his father's Alzheimer's started while he was in the White House.
I would venture to say very few people in Crow Wing County have fully paid health insurance. Tell me the companies that pay 100% of coverage. They deserve our respect. Maybe some government entities do, but I have never heard of any companies lately that have absorbed the increased costs and kept paying 100% family coverage. Maybe they pay for the employee, but not the family. I would love to know of any that do.
And enrolling people for health care will create jobs, not kill them. So data entry people should be updating their resumes!
Furthermore, I am also not a person who wants to take your gun. We have enough.
Also, I have always respected where my thinking has led me!
I have a feeling you are a Democrat in disguise. Fess up.
Ronald C. Reagan???
Ronald Reagan's middle name was Wilson, his son Ron Reagan's middle name is Prescott.