If you’ve ever worked for a complete idiot who believes that people follow titles instead of leadership, then you already know that defiance is sometimes needed in order to do a good job as defined by a sustainably good work ethic. Government officials are by their very nature prone to incompetence and the belief that it is their titles that people will follow—that if only a majority of the people who elect them can be convinced to cast a vote—that they represent the majority opinion and are thus insulated from competent assessment. The moment they get a nameplate on their desk they believe that they are so entitled to lead in any direction they wish without having any other qualification. The military is full of these types of people as is almost every position in government. However in the private sector where the best and brightest are encouraged to thrive, and to rise up to challenge management through healthy competition it is there where all things truly good emerge. Very little good can come from a system where incompetent people rule over the good, or that the good are prevented from making things better through their natural inclination by tyrannical power-hungry supervision. That is why in the United States we celebrate the 4th of July. It is a holiday of defiance and a reminder that sometimes idiots in charge have to be removed so not to ruin the lives of the good.
Leadership is all about respect, when good people know a better person is in a position to guide them to prosperity. For instance, people followed George Patton to the ends of the earth because they believed in the man as he was everything he advertised. Hitler would not have been defeated without Patton in a command position in Europe. A million pin-headed bureaucrats throughout the world gathered together in a thousand circle-jerk meetings about how to defeat the rising dictator and could not stop him with all the troops around the globe at their disposal. They had to have Patton to perform the task and break up the Nazi encampments all the way to Berlin. Patton was effective because people believed in him. People don’t lay down their lives for titles; they do it for people they respect. Without that respect, strategic objectives are impossible—except for the occasional shit-shot that just happens to work by happenstance, like a winning lottery ticket.
As my son-in-law and I were buying fireworks for our family 4th of July party I couldn’t help but notice the nature and body language of the people lining up out the door in the middle of a mid-week afternoon in Lawrenceburg, Indiana to buy fireworks. There was defiance in their presence as they were very conscious that they were illegally buying fireworks to take back across state lines to fire off at their homes while law enforcement stood down over the holiday weekend. Americans won their independence from England with defiance, and the 4th celebrates that defiance. It is the heart of the entire holiday. It is a holiday that celebrates rebellion from incompetent over-reaching leadership in the form of a blood inherited throne. The king of England expected people in the American colonies to remain loyal to his title, and that was simply not the case—it’s not how human beings work.
The settlements involved in westward expansion were about defiance. The boldest and most ingenious of the new American nation headed west to be free to function from the increasingly bureaucratic east. Along the way there were conflicts with Indian tribes, all of whom had acquired their land through similar battles with rival tribes who were meeting similar rebels seeking opportunity, and the Americans won by sheer will and cantankerous perseverance. The new nation flooded with ambitious people fleeing the titles of Europe for at least the opportunity to be their own people—to rule their own lives. The Indians could not stop that human desire to be rid of incompetent rule—that was the cause of westward expansion—to have the opportunity and freedom to live their own lives, and it built the greatest nation on earth—until America ran out of land and was forced once again to reconcile under the rule of people with titles, who sit behind desks bureaucratically running the lives of people from behind a nameplate bringing the same kind of ineffective stewardship to America as what we fled from in Europe.
Today’s Barack Obama, or Mitch McConnell types could not lead troops in the way that George Patton did, or even Sam Houston in Texas against Santa Anna. They are not respected and are incapable of real leadership. They are figureheads of administration and when they overstep their boundaries, they should be removed through elections. If they work the system in such a way—as they have—to stay in power regardless of public opinion then the Bill of Rights provides ways of preserving the American Constitution by forcible removal which sometimes is an unfortunate option. That is why we have the Second Amendment—it’s not to hunt rabbits, it’s to remove tyrannical governments from hiding behind nameplates and destroying our freedoms. The First Amendment is there to warn those knuckle-draggers of the danger to them if they continue to proceed—out of fairness.
Personally I think the American Constitution is way too Hamiltonian—too Federalist for my liking. My sentiments reside in The Anti-Federalist papers which I always have near me chronicling the Constitutional Convention Debates of 1787-1788. It is because of those Anti-Federalist Papers that we have a Bill of Rights—and thus the Second Amendment. It is clearly the plight of the Federalist types who are today’s soft bellied conservatives, progressives, libertarians, and blind patriots who accept with a shade of incompetency an adherence to The Federalist Papers and perhaps some Supreme Court case-law as a means of revision in a “living” document evolving over time by more desk sitting bureaucrats. Case in point, Justice John Roberts of the present court—I was thinking about him as I watched people buy fireworks at the store my son-in-law and I was at. The store itself was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week all the way up to the 4th. Proudly people were spending $300 to $1000 on explosives in large shopping carts to fill their cars with defiance and they had a swagger in their step that they don’t have otherwise. It was in the notion of defiance that they were most proud and it is there that the 4th of July holiday is best defined. It was reassuring to them to know that they were defying the law on the 4th, that just because someone like John Roberts stacked the court against the American Constitution recently with damaging case-law that future lawyers would use to make lots of money and further encumber individual freedom in favor of collectivist sentiment—that they had a means of rebellion against incompetency. I know that the Constitution is only part of the debate. The Anti-Federalist Papers represent still a large sector of the country that will always insist on defiance and freedom. All they lack is a leader who will unite them against a tyrannical government. I happen to know a few of those types of people, and right now we are using the First Amendment to help those name plate bureaucrats know their place. But at some point, the Second Amendment may be needed to remove the corruption and scum from the K-Street brothels, and Sodom and Gomorra scandals of the Beltway. Because they don’t know what they are doing, and are not equipped to lead us to a prosperous tomorrow.
The debates in The Anti-Federalist Papers tell the story of a nation reluctant to give control of the nation over to a central authority—because of the tendency of the weak to seek power and refuge behind a nameplate only to become everything that America fought from England only to become again was too tempting. There comes a time where the people of America must show defiance not just on the 4th of July, but the 5th, and 6th and onward to throw off the poor leadership of the nameplate types and free themelves to the best and brightest among them. Not the slickest talker or the most manipulative Shakespearian back-stabber. But the best that their society can produce, the Pattons, the Chennaults, and the Hustons to take the nation back toward The Anti-Federalist Papers arguments thus preserving the American Constitution with a swagger that is distinctly born of a free people. When you hear the fireworks from millions of American homes, it is The Anti-Federalist Papers that they unconsciously celebrate, and is the heart of what truly keeps us free.
Rich Hoffman
CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
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