The world is starved for virtuous, courageous leaders and problem solvers. For those perplexed by the current state of politics, Groucho Marx had the answer. Groucho said, “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”
Today, amidst modernity, leadership has been replaced with consensus, collaboration, and cowardice.
Most individuals succumb to the status quo, even if they are miserable because it is easier or more comfortable. Great leaders are different. Great leaders are thinkers who create opportunities for thousands and millions of individuals. But they also face obstacles. (READ MORE from Bob Luddy: Calvin Coolidge: Freedom Works Best)
Leaders with ideas will immediately be met by blockers. The blockers will do everything possible to kill your ideas.
Nonetheless, leaders are force multipliers. That means that leaders bring energy and ideas, which increase outcomes and purpose. Napoleon stated, “Freedom is nothing without opportunity.” Virtuous leaders are truth seekers that create opportunities.
Ronald Reagan was one such leader. He is universally loved today but was opposed by many in his lifetime. In 1987, Reagan uttered this famous line at the Brandenburg gate in Germany, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” These powerful words inspired the unthinkable — the wall came down two years later.
That was leadership.
Reagan’s Cold War partner, Margaret Thatcher, had crucial words about leadership. She spoke of consensus, which she described this way: “Consensus: The process of abandoning of all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes.”
Today, amidst modernity, leadership has been replaced with consensus, collaboration, and cowardice. That is to say, the Crowd, or the Mob. The mob attacks individual free speech and has seized education.
Almost 30 years ago, Timur Kuran published Private Truths, Public Lies. Our freedom of speech is under siege. The problem is far worse now because we have an all-powerful government that controls public universities, medicine, K-12, news media, and continuously propagandizes the public. In public, many individuals stay silent or lie about their beliefs to avoid criticism. The truth is only shared behind closed doors with trusted friends and relatives. (READ MORE: Accreditation Is a Means of Government Control in Education)
My friend Adrian Bejan, a Duke University professor and physicist, was told by his dad, who lived under Romanian communism, don’t walk away from the crowd, but RUN. In a white paper, Soren Kierkegaard states, “The Crowd is Untruth.”
Anthony Rizzi, a physicist, and founder of the Institute for Advanced Physics, stated, the mob must be taught by logical thinkers. It must be countered, taught, by virtuous leaders.
Alexandre Havard, author of Virtuous Leadership, wrote that bad leaders are not leaders at all; they are manipulators. “Leaders never resort to manipulation … Those who lack genuine authority and succumb to the temptation to exercise unalloyed power are leaders in name only. In fact, they are non-leaders (xix).”
Jesus is our leader, who paid the ultimate price to change the world. Jesus taught us that the only great society is based in Christianity, which secular society is trying to destroy. Religious and economic freedom are under assault, but there is a cure.
The cure is to have “Leading Citizens” — citizens who truly lead — as demonstrated by the likes of Saint Thomas More. That included men like our founders: Jefferson, Adams, Washington, and Franklin. They led as courageous and virtuous leaders and recognized and sought to protect God’s freedom.
What we need are true leaders to once again counter the mob.
