Corruption By Any Other Name – Oliver DeMille
April 25th, 2014 // 10:41 am @ Oliver DeMille
Another Domino Falling
JP
Morgan recently settled a case brought by the government, agreeing to pay Washington $13 billion for its role in the mortgage bubble meltdown.
This creates a very dangerous standard. When something bad happens, Washington will naturally seek to find fault in a place that brings it a lot of extra cash—the most profitable businesses.
As Ken Kurson put it:
“This settlement sets a terrible precedent. Companies with strong balance sheets can expect to become targets of the government…”[i]
This is another domino in the decline of our freedoms, and it’s a big one. This new approach allows, even incentivizes, government corruption. Let’s review how this process works:
- The federal government passes laws that require or incentivize businesses to give loans or offer services/products to people who can’t actually afford them. Businesses that refuse are penalized.
- As a result of this kind of bad policy, many businesses fail. Businesses that comply, but only make middling profits, are left alone.
- Businesses that comply, and make big profits, are targeted by the federal government and end up paying huge sums of money to the government.
Godfather Over Again
This is a great racket. It’s akin to a mafia protection scheme: “You need protection from us. We’ll provide it, for a fee. The fee will be set by us, without appeal or negotiation. If you don’t pay it, we’ll hurt you and/or your business—thus proving that you really did need protection.”
An official term for this new precedent is “corruption.” Except that the Supreme Court gets to determine the actual definition of the word. And who gave the Court the power to do this?
The Supreme Court did, in a string of cases starting in 1803 through 1936.
Is this recurring pattern starting to make sense?
“Wait,” the critics say. “The crash was real! And JP Morgan and other companies that participated need to pay! Right?”
As Kurson wrote:
“Of course, most of JP Morgan’s wrongdoing—70 to 80 percent of the exposure—was committed by two companies, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, it acquired in 2008 at the request, to the point of command, of then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. JPM acquired those companies as acts of mercy during a crisis.”[ii]
Let’s get this straight. The economy was tanking, so the government demanded that JP Morgan buy two flailing firms—to help save the economy. Then, when the fall came, the government targeted JP Morgan for the mistakes of these two firms and made it pay for them.
Godfather corruption indeed.
Who It Hurts
How are businesses responding to this emerging new economy? Many are closing. Others are going abroad, to China, India, Brazil, etc. Those that make enough from the U.S. economy simply pay the fines, settlements, and fees—it’s the cost of doing business.
The real problem is for American workers and families. JP Morgan has increased its litigation reserve up to $23 billion (from $3 billion in 2010).[iii] Other companies are learning to do the same.
What happens when the extra billions are refocused this way? Money moves away from salaries and purchases, the economy is hurt, private sector jobs are cut or curtailed.
The government is currently seeking similar payoffs from a number of other big companies. As this precedent sends its ripples through the economy, it will harm a lot of families.
More firms will move operations and jobs abroad, and others will shift more money from jobs and put it to litigation and fees.
Old Pattern, New Cloth
Oh, and just re-read the government’s pattern outlined above for the mortgage bubble, but this time read it with Obamacare in mind:
- The federal government passes laws that require or incentivize businesses to offer services/products to people who can’t actually afford them. Businesses that refuse are penalized.
- As a result of these bad policies, many businesses fail. Businesses that comply, but only make middling profits, are left alone.
- Businesses that comply, but make big profits, are targeted by the federal government and end up paying huge sums of money to the government.
This really is as shocking as it sounds. Yes, this really is happening in the United States.
The worst news in all this is that most people will do nothing about it, because this kind of financial news is considered technical mumbo jumbo.
Citizens usually just ignore it. “What can I do, after all?” is the typical response.
This is how freedoms decline: slowly for a while–then all at once. The amazing part is that when the “all at once” crash comes, almost everyone acts surprised.
But what can a regular person do? Really? It’s not like you can stop government overspending, party bickering, or a growing culture of corruption with a call to your Congressman or a letter to the editor.
The answer to this major post-modern question (What can a regular person do?) is interesting: We can start with not being surprised.
Problems and Solutions
We can know what is coming. A government addicted to spending and borrowing, and constantly increasing its spending and borrowing, is going to cause problems for the economy and for its citizens.[iv]
A government addicted to increased regulations is going to cause problems.[v]
A government that demands official secrecy from its own people while increasing how it spies on its own citizens is going to cause problems.[vi]
A government that inflates its currency and borrows from its biggest enemies and competitors is going to cause problems.[vii]
A government whose top officials routinely make promises during elections or to pass big agendas and then break them once they win is going to cause problems.[viii]
A government that uses statistics it knows distort reality (just revising them a few months later once decisions have been made), in order to support its continued ideological course, is going to cause problems.[ix]
A citizenry that turns a collective blind eye to these realities is enabling the very problems it fears. Then the people claims surprise when the crash comes.
Anyone who is surprised by the next crash has been lying to themselves for a long time.
False Recovery
As Allan Greenspan wrote in November 2013:
“One can hope that in a future financial crisis—and there will surely be one…”[x]
Calomiris and Haber noted that banking crises should be expected:
“The banking system in the United States has been highly crisis-prone, suffering no fewer than 14 major crisis in the past 180 years.”[xi]
The question isn’t if, but when, the next one will come.
Or consider what J. Bradford DeLong wrote in a piece in Foreign Affairs titled “The Second Great Depression: Why the Economic Crisis is Worse Than You Think”:
“The U.S. economy has enjoyed a recovery [since 2009] only in the sense that conditions haven’t gotten worse…. But it is unlikely that the economic downturn will be over by 2017…”[xii]
Greenspan suggested the second thing people can do. He wrote:
“Financial firms could have protected themselves…if…they had prepared for a rainy day.”[xiii]
Though he addressed this belated counsel to companies, it certainly applies to regular people as well.
Time and Two Steps
To summarize, we have covered two things a regular person can do about our current problems. First, know about them. Pay attention. Keep a close eye on the government, the economy, and current events. Read the fine print and the technical mumbo jumbo put out by government.
The English word for this daily activity and focus is “citizenship.”
The second is to prepare. Look around, see what is really needed, and what is likely to be needed in the years ahead—and take action to help your community flourish.
Not just for you, but for others.
The word for this kind of initiative and foresight is “entrepreneurship.” It isn’t pessimistic, doomsayer, or extreme. In fact, effective entrepreneurialism is precisely the opposite.
It only works if it is optimistic, positive, and sustained.
Without such citizenship and entrepreneurialism, the decline of freedom is only going to accelerate. We’ve still got time for these two things to work, but time is running out.
[i] Ken Kurson, “The Portfolio,” Esquire, February 2014.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] See, for example, Edward Conard, “How to Fix America: Which Tools Should Washington Use? Unleash the Private Sector,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2013. See also: Fareed Zakaria, “Can America Be Fixed?: The New Crisis of Democracy,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2013. For example: “In 1980 the United States’ gross government debt was 42 percent of its total GDP; it is now 107 percent.”
[v] Ibid. For example, the United States is ranked 76th in the world for its “burden of government regulations.”
[vi] See Jack Shafer, “Live and Let Live,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2014. “[A]ccording to the White House review panel convened last year to examine the NSA’s surveillance practices, the bulk collection of phone records has stopped precisely zero attacks.”
[vii] See, for example, Minxin Pei, “How China and America See Each Other: And Why They Are On A Collision Course,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2014. For example: “In 2007, the United States’ economy was four times as large as that of China; by 2012, it was only twice as large.”
[viii] E.g. “If you want to keep your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” See also: Michael A. Cohen, “Hypocrisy Hype: Can Washington Still Walk and Talk Differently?” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2014.
[ix] See Zachary Karabell, “(Mis)leading Indicators: Why Our Economic Numbers Distort Reality,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2014.
[x] Allan Greenspan, “Never Saw It Coming: Why the Financial Crisis Took Economists by Surprise,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2013.
[xi] Charles W. Calomiris and Stephen H. Haber, “Why Banking Systems Succeed and Fail: The Politics Behind Financial Institutions,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2013.
[xii] J. Bradford DeLong, “The Second Great Depression: Why the Economic Crisis is Worse Than You Think,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2013.
[xiii] Op Cit., Greenspan.
Category : Blog &Business &Citizenship &Community &Current Events &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Leadership &Liberty &Mini-Factories &Mission &Politics &Uncategorized
Why Do We Keep Losing the Freedom Battle?
March 20th, 2014 // 3:00 pm @ Oliver DeMille
Two Avenues of Destruction
Why does government keep growing, no matter who we elect, no matter which party is in charge? 
Why do freedom lovers, those who truly want limited, Constitutional government, continue to lose the battle?
There are two answers. First, the freedom battle loses—year after year, election after election, decade after decade—because it is poorly funded. The political parties are well funded, mind you, but neither party truly stands for freedom. Freedom lovers lose because they are underfunded, pure and simple. More on this below.
Second, those who stand for freedom lose the battle to bigger government because the regular people can’t see what is happening. We don’t see armed troops in jackboots marching daily through our streets, entering our homes, and stealing our property and lives.
When the people can’t see this happening, it’s hard for them to get too excited about it. They don’t know what to fight against. They don’t know who the enemy is. They aren’t sure who to fight, or how to fight them.
The Paper Sword
We don’t realize that Soft Power attacks (certain licensing requirements, regulations, agency policies, commercial codes, revenue bills, statutory changes, executive orders, secret agency procedures, exemptions, ex post facto decisions, and court cases) are as dangerous to freedom as Hard Power attacks (invading armies, armed rebellions, political officials with their own armies, or government use of force against its own people).
In history, the regular people often respond to Hard Power attacks on freedom, but they seldom even notice Soft Power attacks until their freedoms are too far gone to recover.
Citizens of nations almost never realize it when Soft Power is attacking them. The biggest irony of this is that throughout human history Soft Power has taken away more freedom than Hard Power. In fact, Hard Power is seldom used until Soft Power has weakened a nation.
Today, we are witnessing a wholesale reduction of our freedoms—nearly all through Soft Power attacks that few people notice.
To See and Understand
As one insightful friend wrote to me in an email: “We don’t know who or what to fight against. I still believe the majority of Americans value freedom… We, as a culture, do not know how to defend freedom in this new age of information, nor do we know who or what to defend it from. All the average citizen sees—or is supposed to see—is things going a little darker, a little dirtier, a little more crowded, each day. There is, for most Westerners in any case, no force-of-state brutes-in-boots and uniforms…. We see only the results of class stratification and economic divergence…. The most dangerous enemy is the one you can’t see.”
Americans would stand up and vote to get their freedoms back, if only they understand how much they are under attack.
If they could see their freedoms being stolen by Hard Power attacks at the level that they are truly under siege from Soft Power, they’d change things—and fast.
But the regular people don’t see, because Soft Power is used behind-the-scenes, on paper.
How to Win It
This is why only a nation of voracious readers can maintain its freedoms. This brings us back to the first reason freedom is losing: underfunding.
Not only do we need a nation of voracious readers, we need a lot of successful businessmen, professionals, entrepreneurs, and others of means to fund freedom—to fund those things that help the regular people see and understand the impact of Soft Power.
This is the current battle for the future of freedom.
1. Will people of means fund effective responses to Soft Power attacks on our freedom?
2. Enough to win the battle?
3. ill enough regular people take entrepreneurial action and become people of means?
On these three questions turn our future.
Which of these three battles are you helping fight?
Oliver DeMille is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling co-author of LeaderShift: A Call for Americans to Finally Stand Up and Lead, the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
Among many other works, he is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America’s Destiny.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Aristocracy &Business &Citizenship &Community &Constitution &Current Events &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Government &Leadership &Liberty &Mini-Factories &Mission &Politics &Statesmanship
America’s Great Degeneration
March 5th, 2014 // 1:24 pm @ Oliver DeMille
Speaking of how the government runs its finances today, historian Niall Ferguson wrote:
“The present system is, to put it bluntly, fraudulent. There are no regular published and official balance sheets. Huge liabilities are simply hidden from view. Not even the current income and expenditure statements can be relied upon. No legitimate business could possibly carry on in this fashion. The last corporation to publish financial statements this misleading was Enron.”
This basically sums up the modern American problem. The government operates on one set of rules, hides it from the regular citizenry, and enforces a different set of rules on businesses and families.
No such system has ever remained free.
This is already extracting a terrible toll from our economy. As Ferguson put it:
“In a 2011 survey, [Michael] Porter and his colleagues asked [Harvard Business School] alumni about 607 instances of decisions on whether or not to offshore operations. The United States retained the business in just ninety-six cases (16 percent) and lost it in all the rest.
“Asked why they favored foreign locations, the respondents listed the areas where they saw the U.S. falling further behind the rest of the world. The top ten reasons included:
1. the effectiveness of the political system
2. the complexity of the tax code
3. regulation
4. the efficiency of the legal framework
5. flexibility in hiring and firing.”
In short, a number of other countries have more economic freedom than the U.S. We have more regulations, a more complex tax code, and other problems that make business abroad more attractive for about 84 percent of businesses deciding whether to stay in America or leave.
The average citizen isn’t aware of this reality, or the fact that corporation after corporation is moving to other countries because of Washington’s policies.
Our freedoms are being lost, as business leaders see every day. Yet it continues to happen, and most Americans simply don’t realize it. Nor do they realize how much this hurts our economy and the pocketbooks of U.S. families.
As regulations increase, making it harder and harder for businesses to make a profit, more jobs, capital, and corporations are leaving. The American Dream is declining day after day, right in front of our noses.
For most Americans, the only solution in mind is to elect better government officials. But this hasn’t fixed the problem yet — not by a long shot. The problem gets worse (government spending and regulations increase) whichever party inhabits the White House.
Some other solution is needed, and it will require a return to good, old-fashioned American initiative and innovation — from regular people, not government. Yes, the government makes this more difficult with nearly every passing regulation, but freedom is worth overcoming it anyway.
If we rekindle the American spirit of entrepreneurialism in the next few years, this is a battle we can win. Nothing else will fix the problem.
What are you doing to promote, spread, and teach entrepreneurialism?
Oliver DeMille is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling co-author of LeaderShift: A Call for Americans to Finally Stand Up and Lead, the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
Among many other works, he is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America’s Destiny.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Business &Citizenship &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Government
Obamacare is a Disaster
February 15th, 2014 // 10:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
The stories are coming out all over the nation.
For example, Ashley Dionne is a 26-year-old woman with 2 college degrees. The cost of her monthly insurance premium has risen from $75 previously to $319 under Obamacare.
She wrote:
“Liberals claimed this law would help the poor. I am the poor, the working poor, and I can’t afford to support myself, let alone older generations and people not willing to work at all. This law has raped my future. It will keep me and kids my age from having a future at all.”
But the issues go much deeper than just Obamacare. Dionne said,
“All of the kids that I went to school with, and friends from other colleges, are experiencing the same thing — they don’t have work in their field, they are taking whatever they can get, and we’re really competing with kids who just have GEDs and high school diplomas for really low-paying jobs.”
Obamacare has made it even worse for many. Dionne continued:
“I feel like our future has been stolen, in that we don’t have a choice in this. They’re saying, ‘You have to buy this whether you want it or not. And whether you can afford it or not.’ …I’m someone who has always worked hard, and I’m being told, ‘You have to get on Medicaid.’ I don’t want to get on Medicaid. I want to work, and I feel that were it not for Obamacare I could get 40 hours, and I could support myself.”
So many companies geared up to lay off workers and/or reduce employee hours that the Administration unilaterally postponed Obamacare requirements for businesses for a year.
Even with this change, Gallup noted that 41 percent of medium and small businesses have frozen hiring and growth.
This includes fast-food joints (like Wendy’s, Subway, Papa Johns, Del Taco, and many more), family restaurants (like Applebee’s, Denny’s and others), medical suppliers, local governments, and public colleges. There are many other industries that have stopped hiring and growing, and many have announced thousands of layoffs.
Many businesses are also planning to lay off even more employees next year when Obamacare does kick in for companies. In fact, right now, as businesses gear up for Obamacare, we’ve reached the point where 65 percent of all jobs in the United States are part time.
This is a disaster, and it will get worse until something significantly changes.
As for the other point, 50 percent of college grads for the past several years are unemployed or underemployed.
“A college degree once all but guaranteed a well-paying job and higher earnings than high school graduates,” wrote Alana Semuels for the Los Angeles Times. “But fewer of these good jobs are now available because of both long-term economic changes and the lingering effects of the Great Recession.”
“In the 1980s and 1990s, the demand for college graduates started booming, especially in the lead-up to the tech boom,” said Paul Beaudry, an economist at the University of British Columbia who has studied this trend. Wages grew and a college education paid off.
“But when the tech bubble burst, the economy was left with an oversupply of college graduates. Some went into industries related to housing or finance, and then the recession wiped out those jobs. No industry has emerged to employ all the people who got college degrees in that time,” he said.
“As more college graduates have flooded the market, employers are able to offer lower wages. The earnings of college grads have fallen about 13% in the last decade,” according to Drexel University economist Paul Harrington.
“Saim Montakim has a bachelor’s degree in accounting but drives a New York City taxicab. It’s strenuous work, but he can make $200 on a good day. On a bad day, he barely can pay the rent for the taxi and the cost of gas.” And half of college grads are working in jobs that don’t require a degree at all.
Those who learn to think creatively and innovatively, tend to do better than others, and in fact grads with liberal arts degrees are doing better than others in this challenging economy.
So a great education is still a top goal for some young people. In fact, innovative entrepreneurs are doing best of all.
But for most young people, the old promise of “do good in school and get a great career” simply isn’t working.
“The stakes are enormously high,” wrote Lynn Stuart Parramore on AlterNet. “The young people graduating today will feel the effects of the bad job market for decades to come. [A] Demos study found that if we simply continue to add jobs at the 2012 average rate, it would be 2022 before the country recovers to full employment and restores decent opportunities for those Americans who are just starting out. In the meantime, a whole generation of bright and capable young people is getting left behind.”
“‘I’m starting to feel numb,’ said Karen S., who is trying to find a job while ringing up groceries at a Whole Foods in Manhattan. The 24-year-old from Queens graduated in 2012 with a degree in broadcasting. ‘I did well in my classes, and I looked forward to putting my knowledge and skills to use. Instead I ask, ‘Would you like a bag today?’’ Like Karen, many recent graduates are forced to take McJobs.”
And all of this was a major problem before Obamacare. With the new health care law, it’s getting even more difficult for many young people.
Oliver DeMille is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling co-author of LeaderShift: A Call for Americans to Finally Stand Up and Lead, the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
Among many other works, he is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America’s Destiny.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Economics &Education &Generations &Government &Politics
A Huge Shift is Coming to America
January 23rd, 2014 // 10:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
We entered a new cycle of history during 2013.
Like any cycle, this one started small. But it is growing quickly, and it is already swaying the future.
To understand this, let’s briefly go back to the beginning — when this cycle was first described.
In 1836, even before Alexis de Tocqueville finished his famous classic, Democracy in America, a British official named Henry Taylor published a book entitled The Statesman.
Taylor’s main point was that the Anglo world had been focused on forms of government for too long, ever since 1787 when the Americans wrote their Constitution. Taylor noticed that that there are two main types of political leadership:
- Setting up forms and systems of government (statesmanship)
- The business of governing (politics)
The first, which consists mostly of writing and discussing what is the best constitution or model of government, is always led by statesmen.
The second, which consists of day-to-day politics that focus on the issues, is dominated by political parties, special interest groups, politicians, and bureaucratic agencies.
The first usually emphasizes freedom and liberty, while the second is all about increasing government spending and regulations.
Statesmanship vs. Politics
In 1836, Taylor’s message was that Europe and America had spent sixty years focused on the first kind of leadership, and he argued that it was time, in his words,
“to divert the attention of thoughtful men from forms of government to the business of governing.”
It was statesmanship versus politics, and Taylor believed that it was time to forget statesmanship for a while and emphasize politics. The era of the politician had come.
Specifically, the statesmanship era from 1776 to 1836 was followed by an era of politics from 1836 to 1913, which was followed by an era of statesmanship (changing constitutions and overarching societal systems) from 1913 to 1945. Then came another era of politics (increased government spending and regulations by politicians and bureaucrats) from 1945 to 2013.
We are on the verge of another major shift today, and the changes will be drastic.
Instead of the major national dialogue focusing on issues (e.g. immigration, abortion, energy policy, national security, health care, gun control, education policy, etc.), the increasing focus will be on how to change the Constitution.
It has already started, in fact. Less than a year ago, for example, Georgetown professor Louis Seidman wrote an article in the New York Times entitled “Let’s Give Up on the Constitution.” He argued that the Constitution is outdated, and that it is time to “scrap” it and write something better.
This brought a series of angry rebuttals from the Right, and a number of strong suggestions from the Left, but few seem to realize that this is the beginning of a new era of the American debate.
Several others have entered this growing discussion, like David Brooks, who wrote in the New York Times on December 12, 2013 that the U.S. should alter our system to “Strengthen the Presidency.”
And New York Times bestselling author Mark Levin wrote a series of new amendments that he feels should be added to the Constitution to fix our current system and get America back on track.
Just a couple weeks ago, almost 100 legislators from 32 states met in Mount Vernon, Virginia to discuss the possibility of adding amendments to the constitution through a convention of the states, as authorized by Article 5 of the constitution.
The Next Shift
When Orrin Woodward and I wrote the New York Times bestseller LeaderShift and released it earlier this year, neither of us knew that 2013 would be the year of this major shift — from politics to statesmanship, from issues to changing the whole system.
This is momentous, and our book outlines nine specific changes, in the form of proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution, that would put American prosperity, freedom, strength and power quickly back on line.
I am convinced that LeaderShift is representative of the best of this new trend, this growing debate on how to change our system to get it headed in the right direction once again. And you can read all four of the new commentaries in this emerging debate (Seidman, Levin, Brooks, Woodward and DeMille) and decide for yourself.
Make no mistake: this is THE debate of the coming decade. As a nation, we have concluded that Washington is broken. The American people generally feel that the system is fractured and needs to be fixed, and those who are focused on daily governing will miss out on the real tide ahead: coming changes in our overall system.
Since such changes aren’t usually the focus in elections, many people won’t realize that this is happening. But as I already noted, the debate has already begun.
Issues and Politics
When Orrin and I were interviewed by many journalists about our book, it was a bit of a surprise to us that nearly every interviewer wanted to focus on issues, issues, issues and partisan politics, politics, politics.
That’s been the tone in America for over sixty years, so we probably should have expected it.
But now the tide is shifting. This isn’t something we can afford to get wrong. Change is upon us. President Obama was elected by promising such change. Yet if we make the wrong changes, it can only hurt this great nation.
Change is here, and it is the kind of change that focuses on our Constitution and the very fundamentals of our society and national system.
The debate will grow in the years ahead, the way such changes always do — slowly for a while, and then all at once.
Yet the ideas at the center of this debate, the ideas right now argued by Seidman, Brooks, Levin, Woodward and DeMille, and others who join the discussion, will sway the 21st Century.
I wrote in my book, 1913, that the year 1913 was a pivotal time of change. It looks more and more like its century year 2013 will be even more significant. This is the year we began the shift from politicians, bureaucrats and issues to and major changes to our Constitution and system.
Some will argue that we should change nothing, that the old Constitution is the best. But in reality we haven’t been following the original principles of the Constitution for many decades, and the primacy of the Constitution continues to erode due to the way Washington skirts, reinterprets and at times ignores it.
Whatever you think of our current system, change is imminent. The only question is: How will we change, what precisely will we change?
That is what this debate is all about. A LeaderShift is happening, right now, under our noses. America is changing while its citizens sleep.
What we need is a new generation of Madisons, Adams, and Jeffersons.
We need more men and women who understand how to write constitutions and amendments that create and protect real freedom. If you are one of these people, or should be, it is time to join the debate.
It is time to take action, so we go in the right direction.
Oliver DeMille is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling co-author of LeaderShift: A Call for Americans to Finally Stand Up and Lead, the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
Among many other works, he is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, The Coming Aristocracy, and FreedomShift: 3 Choices to Reclaim America’s Destiny.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Blog &Business &Citizenship &Constitution &Economics &Education &Entrepreneurship &Generations &Government &History &Politics
