My free advice to Sarah Palin
Friday, July 10, 2009 at 06:51PM Since Sarah Palin continues to be in the news and to be a hot topic on the blogs, and since no one is sure what she's going to do, perhaps even herself, I will give my advice. I'm sure she's a regular reader of my blog. There's no need to thank me, Sarah -- I'm just that kind of guy.
Do not support any Republican candidate by campaigning for them -- don't even offer, and refuse if asked. Denounce your political training and clear your mind. Go outside government. Take your ideas of limited government, strong national defense and energy solutions, and read everything you can to support your ideas. Read books which contain ideas that oppose your own. Forget about being a populist, just be natural and honest.
Use your celebrity, if you, indeed, want to spread your ideas and concern for the nation and world, to speak directly to the people who care about what you have to say. Become un-political, un-partisan and incorporate the principles of your religion into your sense of life, but don't parade your religion as a tawdry and hokey show of spiritual pride.
Keep it simple, heartfelt, straightforward, but don't make it simplistic -- don't wink and talk cutesy -- learn the art of getting a complex message across in language that touches the deeper part of people's understanding. Read the great poets and learn how language can be used to create an altered understanding, an understanding which doesn't trigger easy cliches, but makes your audience think deeply about their beliefs, and challenges them to accept that no political party has the pat answers to society's problems, but that we can all freely, cooperatively and competitively move toward those answers.
In order to defend freedom, you'll have to know what freedom is -- that it can be terrifying and difficult, that there is no central plan but an emerging order we can only attempt to guide through a morality which values the best humans have to offer, and protects us from the worst.
It's not enough to say that government should get out of our lives, so you'll have to show you know what humans should do with free lives -- how trade is better than war, charity is better than government welfare, capitalism is better than central planning. You'll have to show that when people claim freedom but then support government intervention which is beneficial to their group over a another, then they are hypocrits and not suited for freedom. Libertarian principles aren't just parts of a new party line used to gain power over others, they are guidelines to a new way of life free from the tenacles of the state.
If you don't believe in freedom, but just a tamer version of the statism raging in Washington DC, then you might as well stay in politics and get handlers to see how far you can go. But if you want to do something different, then do it -- tell all the politicians, pundits and media poodles to kiss your ass, and just do it -- and have fun.
Reader Comments (2)
I'd vote for any politician who followed even 75% of this advice....regardless of their ideology. At least I'd know they were honest.
Yes, that was sort of the point, until those who have the influence begin doing some of these things it's just one political team criticizing members of the other political team, both with legitimate criticisms, because politics and partisanship make fools and liars out of all of them. We need people to go outside the political realm where they can maybe be honest -- hell, it's more lucrative, too. The private sector needs to produce informed leaders to counterbalance politicians and partisan hacks.