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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 8bits who wrote (34835)	2/21/1999 6:33:00 PM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 67261

Nick, I recommend you read the book "The leadership Challenge" by Kouzes and Posner to understand this concept better. Leaders can come from any walk of life. Here is a recent example. Article... Mona Charen As Minn. goes, so goes the nation? (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) JUST WHEN YOU WERE SURE that conservatism and the libertarian preference for limited government were becoming extinct, they make unexpected appearances, pushing up through the concrete of liberalism like determined green sprouts. In his State of the Union address, President Clinton once more showed his talent for deception by outlining his latest schemes for spending our tax dollars all the while pretending to be saving them for Social Security. But beyond the question of whether the plan to have your cake and eat it too is honest, we have neglected the question that once animated nearly all domestic debates between liberals and conservatives: Should the government be a security blanket, shielding us from every imaginable hardship or discomfort (and extracting 40 percent to 50 percent of our income in the process), or a remote and unintrusive rule setter, letting us find our own way and leaving us alone? Ventura During the Reagan years, it seemed that there was a large and knowing constituency for limited government. Ronald Reagan, echoing his hero Barry Goldwater, preached limited government and was rewarded with two landslide victories. But Clinton, who offers government help for everything from leaky school roofs to fly-away hair, is rewarded with the highest approval ratings of any modern White House occupant (putting aside the frightening possibility that Clinton's approval ratings are the consequence of his ethical failings). It was possible to read the 1994 election results -- which felled only Democratic office holders and shifted the power balance decisively in favor of Republicans -- as a limited-government mandate. The Contract for America spoke of devolving power to the states and localities. Yet, when the Republicans proceeded to act on that assumption, they had their heads handed to them by President Clinton, with the staunch support of the opinion polls. Perhaps the message of 1994 was quite limited: no new government health care system but no change in the rest of the federal behemoth. (In an amazing bit of political jujitsu, Clinton was later able to take credit for the balanced budget that he had resisted so strenuously during the government shutdown.) So where, in the post-impeachment landscape, does one find the stouthearted notion of individual responsibility and limited government making a comeback? Why, in the heart of liberal Minnesota -- home of Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy and Walter Mondale. Only days after President Clinton was proposing to federalize the problem of "social promotion," Gov. Jesse Ventura observed that National Public Radio did not need and did not deserve public money. It seems Ventura had worked in radio and knew that some commercial stations were holding their equipment together with spit and tape, while their competitors at public radio had state-of-the-art equipment. OK, maybe taking on public radio is mere boilerplate. But there's more. Last week, Jesse the Brain Ventura met with a hundred or so protesters from the state university. They were demanding the usual things -- more money from the taxpayers of Minnesota to help balance their checkbooks. Perhaps you must have once been a Navy Seal, or perhaps you need a wrestling career to supply the requisite courage, but Gov. Ventura met these protesters with the kind of brio rarely (never?) found in politics today. "I believe in self-sufficiency," he told the crowd to loud boos. "I am a single mother," cried one plaintive voice from the crowd. "Well, I don't want to sound hard-core," Ventura responded, "but why did you become a single parent? It takes two to raise ... " "And sometimes one of them walks away," the student interrupted. "What then?" she demanded. Ventura looked exasperated. "You're asking the government to make up for people's mistakes. Is that the government's job?" But "we are the future," chanted the kids. "Who gave me anything?" Ventura shot back. The American people may be fickle. They may send confusing signals sometimes. But the concept of limited government on which this nation was founded has a way of reviving --- sometimes in quite muscular fashion.