Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to re: On the third hand...

drafting leaders
Robert — (archived)

Yeah, I sometimes wonder too if we wouldn't get better leaders picking them by random lottery.

I think the problem is the way both parties have push populist rhetoric to a pathological degree. Nowadays, it seems like a lot of people have gotten it into their heads that their duty in the voting booth is to pick leaders just like themselves--"jes plain folk"--instead of the people they think best equipped to lead. Much of the rhetoric's an ongoing David Everyman versus The Goliath Elite with different actors playing the roles.

That's not my idea of how a democratic republic ought to work. Didn't the idea used to be that we'd pick the best among us--a democratically-selected elite-- to lead?

Subtle nuance, but I think that in a parallel notion, people have come to believe that a leader is somebody who thinks just like them and will make all the same decisions, instead of somebody whose wisdom and/or intelligence they trust to make the right decisions, and in theory better decisions, on their behalf. We've become rather egocentric, it seems.

But the trust thing is probably the key to the problem. After Vietnam and Watergate a lot of people lost trust in our leaders, and I think in a way it was a loss of faith in our own ability to pick good leaders. We've increasingly played it safe by taking the easy way out and picking leaders for their resemblance to ourselves, instead of the hard work of figuring out who'd be a better leader than ourselves.

Maybe a random lottery would improve the results with a lot less work, but means settling for mediocrity (admittedly an improvement). I don't think that's good enough--we'd be better off returning to the practice of selecting the "best and brightest" to lead us, even if it does take a whole lot more thinking.

(I just remembered I'm talking to a Republican, whose Party, having held power and ruled with an iron hand for more than five long years, is therefore the defacto definition of "sub-mediocre leadership"...what can I say? I'm sorry Republicans have held power for more than five long years too. I almost feel sorry for you guys, having noone to blame but yourselves. But this too shall pass.)

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