Why We Need a Third Party
November 17th, 2012 // 10:36 am @ Oliver DeMille
by Oliver DeMille
In the aftermath of the 2012 election, there have been numerous emails, posts, articles and blogs by business owners who say they are planning to sell or close their businesses, or just lay off enough workers that they can afford Obamacare for the employees who remain.
One summary listed the following announced layoffs—all attempts to deal with the new costs of Obamacare:
- Welch Allyn, 275 layoffs
- Stryker, 1170 layoffs
- Boston Scientific, between 1200 and 1400 layoffs
- Medtronic, 1000 layoffs
- Smith and Nephew, 770 layoffs
- Hill Rom, 200 layoffs
- Kinetic Concepts, 427 layoffs
- Coviden, 595 layoffs
- Abbot Labs, 427 layoffs
- St. June Medical, 300 layoffs
There are many, many others.
One email dated November 7, the day after the election, read:
“Time to sell our business. We can no longer afford to provide a living for 14 employees as soon we’re forced to pay for their healthcare. So sad, too bad. On to new ventures.”
After responses about how sad this is and others pointedly blaming the Obama Administration, the same person continued:
“We are all Americans and need to find common ground and make this country great together. I’m not mad at anyone for voting different than me. They love their president, don’t lose friends over calling him a dictator. I’m excited to sell our business. We are adventurous!”
That’s the entrepreneurial spirit that made America great.
Not: “Oh no, we’re losing our job. Will the government help us?”
But rather: “Hey, change happens. We’re excited. This is going to be an adventure!”
That’s the American spirit.
And while rumors abound about how much Obamacare will cost each small business and which won’t have to make any changes at all, there are a lot of employers right now who are very concerned.
Those with under 50 employees aren’t supposed to be hurt, but smaller employers are still worried about exactly how the new laws will be enforced.
Sadly, we will likely see a lot of change in small business in the months and years just ahead.
More regulation, higher taxes and drastically increased costs of employing people will make things more difficult.
An exception may be in network marketing companies or compensated communities.
I’ve long considered them among the top entrepreneurial opportunities in free nations, and with the current changes and policies this is even more true.
“My son is a doctor,” Marge said proudly.
“Wow,” Betty said with a concerned voice. “How is your son dealing with the new regulations coming into effect under Obamacare?” she asked.
Marge nodded and her face grew serious. “He’s very concerned, to tell the truth.”
“Fortunately, my son is building a huge network marketing company, and the regulations aren’t hurting him much,” Betty said. “Maybe your son would like to meet with mine about an opportunity?”
This kind of conversation is taking place a lot right now, and all indications are that it will increase.
Some parents are recommending that their college children put school on hold and start a network business, and I know two medical doctors who have gotten out of the profession in order to build networking businesses.
One of them talked two of his sons into quitting college and doing the same, though the three of them all ended up building networking organizations with entirely different companies.
II. The Party of Small Business
All of this got me thinking today, and as I pondered I realized something. Something big.
Something we really need right now in America.
We need a third party.
Actually, we need a new party that becomes more popular than the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
There are more independents than members of either big party, so this shouldn’t be too much of a stretch.
Here’s the problem: The Democratic Party is now the unabashed party of big government, the welfare state, rule from Washington D.C., and everything that goes with these values.
The Republican Party touts itself as the party of freedom, limited government, free markets and business, but in fact it is the party of big business and a big-spending government at the same or just slightly lower levels than Democrats.
We have a party of Big Government (with big business as its co-pilot), and another party that emphasizes Big Business (with big government as its co-pilot).
The first is the Democratic Party, the second the GOP.
Neither is now effectively serving the needs of our nation.
As a result, we get bigger government regardless of who gets elected, and big business grows (to the frequent detriment of small businesses) regardless of who is in power in Washington.
In all of this, small businesses, families, communities and the middle class are the losers.
The solution? We need a party of small business.
We need a party whose top priority is the needs of families and small businesses.
This new party needs to reject the big-government and anti-free enterprise values of the Democrats and simultaneously the big-business and anti-immigrant attitudes of Republicans.
It needs to embrace toleration, diversity, reduced government regulations, lower taxes, decreased government spending, incentives for entrepreneurship, a charitable safety net, and incentives for more immigrants to bring their capital, businesses, labor and families to America.
It needs to get rid of the barriers to hiring (such as the increasing required health care costs) and drastically reduce government red tape for small businesses.
It needs to allow more innovation, shrink requirements on licenses and permits and other unnecessary costs that decrease entrepreneurship and growth, and create an environment of seamless partnerships between schools and businesses.
It needs to promote, encourage and incentive a lot more initiative, innovation and entrepreneurialism.
It also needs to push for more creative and independent thinking in the schools and less that is rote, conveyor-belt, and pre-scripted.
It should change the way schools are run, replacing an environment where administrators and bureaucrats feel comfortable to one led by proven innovators and others who have been successful in the real economy, the FOR-profit economy.
Forget teacher certification and unions—if we want to compete in the global economy we need innovators leading our classrooms.
As an example, principals and teachers should be hired who have excelled at implementing successful business plans rather than writing resumes.
And funding should flow to schools that excel in a true free market.
To ensure to that no child is left behind (for example in less-advantaged neighborhoods), even larger premiums should go to innovators who successfully turn dumpy schools into flourishing institutions whose graduates thrive.
The new party should apply similar principles to other kinds of organizations, from health care and community governments to every other sector of the economy.
Small businesses bring the large majority of growth in the economy, and the new party needs to begin with the specific needs of small businesses in mind.
It needs to identify things that hurt small business and repeal them, and find out what helps small businesses succeed and introduce more policies that encourage these things.
It needs to rewrite the commercial and legal code to create an environment where innovation is the norm, along with the values of growth, calculated risk, leadership, creativity, and entrepreneurialism.
It needs to be not the party of jobs, but the party of successful business ownership—and the jobs they naturally create.
III. A Bright Future?
We need a third party. The party of Big Government (with big business as co-pilot) and the party of Big Business (with big government as co-pilot) simply aren’t doing what our nation needs anymore.
It’s time for new thinking and new leadership.
There is an old saying that you can’t pour new wine into old bottles, because the residue of past wine always taints the new.
This is where we are in America.
The current parties, as much good as both have done at times, have peaked and are in decline.
New leadership is needed, along new values untainted by the baggage of two parties whose time has come and gone.
It is perhaps possible to reform one of the parties to get better results, but it is likely that only a new party with an entirely new focus and fresh thinking is going to take America where it needs to go.
Democratic nations are notorious for refusing to change until crisis forces their hand, and I suspect this is what we’ll witness in the 21st Century.
At some point, probably after major crisis and a superhuman American response, we’re going to need a new party.
Those who love freedom should start thinking about what it should look like.
One thing is clear: When it does come, it needs to be a party of small business.
Free enterprise and the entrepreneurial spirit made America great, and it will do so again if we let it.
Whatever comes in the economy, we want to be led by those whose attitude is, “It might sound bad, but this is an exciting adventure! Let’s get started…”
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
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 &Community &Constitution &Culture &Current Events &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Family &Featured &Government &Independents &Leadership &Liberty &Mission &Politics &Producers &Prosperity &Statesmanship
AFTER THE ELECTION: The Year of Danger
November 8th, 2012 // 5:51 pm @ Oliver DeMille
The year ahead is a time of danger.
The election of 2012 is over, and you are either happy or upset with the outcome—or, like many independents, you are predictably frustrated with the whole system.
Whatever the case, the next few months is a time of real danger in our nation.
During elections, energy and citizen participation is high.
After elections, it reaches all-time lows. People of all political views tend to focus on other things and leave governance to the politicians.
America has serious challenges ahead, and many of them kick in right at the beginning of 2013.
Moreover, during the next year we will almost certainly determine whether or not the United States is going to fall off the looming financial cliff.
Concerns include:
- The rapidly growing debt
- The overwhelming reality of entitlements
- The growing deficit
- The weakening national credit rating
- The struggling role of the U.S. Dollar as the world’s reserve currency
- Various looming bubbles in the market
- A coming inflation crunch
- A further middle-class squeeze on jobs and discretionary income
- A tax rate that is driving more businesses abroad (or out of business)
- A very nervous small business community that is uncertain about growth or hiring
- Weak consumer demand that is causing businesses to produce less (and cut jobs)
- A rapidly expanding government sector that is threatening free enterprise
Washington needs to address these concerns quickly to relieve business anxiety that we’ll just see more of the same (or worse) from the government for the next four years.
After all, without the necessity of reelection the Obama Administration could be truly anti-business.
Hopefully, in contrast, President Obama will see this as an opportunity to really work with Republicans to fix these major national challenges.
The larger problem is that democratic societies seldom take action until they feel direct pain.
Indeed, democratic nations are notoriously bad at anticipating pain and taking action ahead of time, so they seldom stop crises but rather wait until it is too late to get serious about solutions.
We need real solutions in the months and year just ahead, and we can’t afford to wait for more crises.
We must immediately address the economic realities above (and others like them), at the very time the citizenry is the least likely to stay actively involved.
Whatever your political views, America needs you to stay enthusiastically engaged in watching and influencing government. Now more than ever.
Right now begins the year of danger in government and the future of the economy, and only the first branch of government—the people—can truly ensure that things go well.
The alternative is further major economic downturn.
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
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 &Citizenship &Current Events &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Featured &Government &Independents &Leadership &Liberty &Mission &Politics
The Education Event of the Summer
August 1st, 2012 // 12:09 pm @ ekdemille
Featuring Oliver DeMille presenting:
The New Approach to Leadership Education for the Decade Ahead
Click here to register now, or scroll down for more details…
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How TJEd is different in the 4th Turning
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The 7 Steps of TJEd (totally different than the 7 Keys)
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Using the Trivium and Quadrivium to take TJEd to the next level
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New directions for college and career in the newly emerging economy
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…and much more!
Expand the vision, scope and application of Leadership Education in your home and in your mission, with this groundbreaking first-run seminar. This workshop is appropriate for seasoned and new TJEders, and everyone in between — as well as those educating in eclectic styles.
Bonus Gifts
To help you prepare for the coming school year, all registrants will receive the following free downloads* in addition to the webinar (all newly-produced especially for registrants of this event):
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“A 2012 Update to the Foundations of TJEd”: mp3 audio presentation by Oliver DeMille
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“The 1-Step Guide to Great Mentoring (How to Double the Quality of Your Mentoring in 2 Hours)”: mp3 audio presentation by Oliver DeMille
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“A Guide to Family Reading”: e-book compiled by Rachel DeMille
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An mp3 audio download of the entire Webinar for future listening
*These bonus gifts will be emailed to you with the link for the recording of the webinar after the date of the presentation.
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Webinar Details
Held Thursday, August 9, 2012
Event Time by Region:
- 3-5 p.m. Hawaii
- 5-7 p.m. Alaska
- 6-8 p.m. Pacific
- 7-9 p.m. Mountain
- 8-10 p.m. Central
- 9-11 p.m. Eastern
$19 per registrant (immediate family free on a shared computer)
Category : Blog &Education &Entrepreneurship &event &Family
Losing the Battle
July 14th, 2012 // 4:29 pm @ Oliver DeMille
Sometimes domestic politics can be so engaging that we miss the forest for the trees.
The Chinese government and government-run companies have been busy for a decade buying up oil, minerals and other natural resources in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Central Asia, while U.S. firms face massive amounts of red tape and regulations from Washington when they try to compete for world resources.
This is creating a new split between the haves and the have nots—China has resources and the rights to resources around the world, while the U.S. increasingly does not.
Free enterprise is a better system than state-owned, authoritarian economics, but in this case Washington isn’t allowing free enterprise.
It’s more like a statist, authoritarian economy in Beijing versus an over-regulating, short-sighted bureaucracy in Washington. And totalitarian dictatorships are notoriously more effective than bumbling bureaucracies.
There is an excellent article on the topic in Foreign Affairs (July/August 2012): “How to Succeed in Business: And Why Washington Should Really Try,” by Alexander Bernard.
Bernard notes that the motive behind China’s state-owned purchases of resources around the globe isn’t to make money, but rather to “fuel the country’s economic rise.”
Certainly military might and political clout will follow.
Nor is China the only nation in the game.
India, Brazil, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, among others, are far more aggressive in tying up the world’s resources and contracts than U.S. companies.
Again, Washington’s regulatory scheme makes a reversal of this trend unlikely.
When our own government shuts down free enterprise, our corporations can’t compete with the biggest governments in the world.
Bernard writes:
“Among its peers, the United States is by far the least aggressive in promoting commercial interests…. China has managed to plant its commercial flag even in countries that are U.S. allies.”
In all this, the future of American wealth, prosperity, investment and jobs is drastically impacted for the negative.
We are failing to reboot our domestic economy because of our addiction to high regulation and high taxation, and the same things are causing consistent failure for U.S. commercial interests abroad.
Free enterprise works, but American policy has turned against it.
We are losing the battle, but losing the war.
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
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 &Current Events &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Featured &Government
The One Thing That Really Annoys Me
June 13th, 2012 // 2:54 pm @ Oliver DeMille
I think I’ve heard every side of the education debate over the past two decades, including different theories of education, the pros and cons of each new educational fad and curriculum, and the opinions of those who support the typical education system versus the many differing views from those who don’t.
I find most of this discussion healthy and intriguing—after all, all the passion shows that many people care deeply about the education of our children.
But there is one thing that really annoys me.
I read it again just this week.
An otherwise stellar writer and usually wise thought-leader said it, and though I’ve heard it before I still cringe whenever it comes up.
It’s the one thing you can’t really say about fixing education, because it is just plain wrong.
This frustrating argument goes something like this: American education needs serious reforming, there are a lot of good ideas on how to do this, but if the changes depend on parents it just isn’t going to work—the experts, in public and/or private schools, are the only ones who can lead this.
My response? This idea is totally false.
Moreover, it’s downright dangerous to a free nation. Those who promote this idea either don’t know what they are talking about or have some dark agenda.
The Bible says those who hurt our little ones should have a millstone put around their neck and be thrown in the ocean.
Okay, that’s not exactly what the Bible says. And clearly I’m putting too much angst into this. Many of the writers are probably good, well-intentioned people.
I need to calm down. Breathe. Live in the now. Zen.
But, as you can probably tell, this topic really gets my ire up.
I think one of the reasons it is so frustrating is that at first glance it sounds quite reasonable. Many people hear this and nod their heads reflexively.
That’s how much we’ve come to trust experts in modern times. “Give me an expert. Any expert…”
The truth is something quite different.
If parents don’t buy in, no educational reform is going to work, no matter how many experts, think tanks, studies, politicians and Presidents support the change.
More to the point, significant and lasting change will only occur when parents truly lead out.
Parents are the indispensable individuals in reforming education.
Certainly there are exceptions to this, examples of students with little parental support who succeed anyway, but the overall direction of education in society is led by a nation’s parents.
It’s time we admit this and approach education reform accordingly.
The future of our society doesn’t depend on Harvard, it depends on our dinner tables.
Current proposals to fix America’s education system are divided into roughly two categories: (1) those that recommend top-down reforms by experts, and (2) those that suggest changes by parents and students.
Both can help, of course.
With that said, there are very few of the second type, and these are given very little credence by the educational elite.
For example, Montessori, Charlotte Mason, homeschooling and other such bottom-up approaches are seen by the education bureaucracy as perhaps useful for a few children and families but not legitimate systems for widespread improvement of education.
This is the old mistake of aristocracies and meritocracies, where innovators become leaders and then their posterity, from their perch at the top of society, routinely discounts the validity of rising innovations.
An executive at 3M once told me that the company was founded by creative and innovative entrepreneurs, but that today none of them could even get an interview at 3M—their resumes just wouldn’t be enough to get through the door with the new-fangled HR guidelines.
Actually, some of the expert proposals for educational reform are quite good, even innovative.
But the attempt to apply them from the top-down, with expert educational theorists training school managers, is doomed from the start because parents are almost entirely left out of the formula.
The future of our educational system—and, by extension, nation—depends on the values of innovation, initiative, creativity, individualism and entrepreneurialism.
These are hardly the natural lessons of our school environments or curricula, nor are they the example set by most of our current cadre of teachers.
Indeed, with all due respect, emulating many of our modern educators or applying the universal lessons of our typical school environments and textbooks is as close to the opposite of innovation, creativity, initiative, individualism and entrepreneurialism as possible.
This irony is central to our education problem.
The system is widely institutionalized, bureaucratic, anti-innovation and conveyor-belt oriented.
Only innovators can really teach innovation, but innovation is by nature risky and therefore seldom a point of career advancement in our teaching system.
The opposite is true, of course, in the growing non-traditional education sector, which is the source of nearly all proposals of the second type.
Many parents face significant criticism when they choose alternative educational paths for their children, but it is exactly such courageous initiative which trains students to be innovative and creative.
On the one hand, prestige and credibility in education are headed in the direction of more of the same, even while the experts give lip-service to innovation but refuse to actually innovate in major ways.
On the other hand, one generation’s innovators are the next generation’s leaders.
Such non-traditional education may appear strange, or even arrogant and indulgent, today, but it is better to be risky than stagnant.
One cliché remains demonstrably true about history: Change happens, and those who try to achieve progress by refusing to innovate are always disappointed.
Homeschooling is profound precisely because it is led by parents. Indeed, the people who make this choice are, by definition, innovative, creative and courageous—or will become so if they stick to it. The same holds true of many other non-traditional educational choices.
The truth is, many professional educators already know this.
For example, I grew up in the home of two teachers.
My father taught fourth grade at the local public elementary school, and later taught third grade and served as a vice-principal before he retired.
His entire career was spent in public schools.
My mother’s career was similar. She taught high-school English and spent a few years teaching English at the local community college before returning to teach high school.
Both of them repeated the following mantra so many times that I grew up assuming everyone knew it: Most of the students who excel in public school are those whose parents are deeply involved with their education.
Homeschooling, Montessori, unschooling, and other non-traditional educational models may not be for everyone in our complex modern nations, but one fact remains a verifiable law of educational reform: Any reform that doesn’t engage and involve the nation’s parents will fail.
Write it in stone.
Parents are the indispensable individuals in society’s educational success.
If you want to influence the future of education, get the parents to lead it.
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Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the co-author of New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
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 &Culture &Education &Entrepreneurship &Family &Featured &Leadership &Liberty
