Share, spread goodwill this festive season
OPINION: As you sit down to read my column today, I trust all is well at your place.
Well worth a read, easy to understand, and full of some rather refreshing practical common sense. Well done Hamish!
It all does remind me of the famous 1981 quote from late US president Ronald Reagan: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” There’s more in there than just good humour.
Considering the rural sector has been the financial backbone of this great little nation of ours for so long, it’s hard to figure out why the political class has treated us the way they have. My take on that is, they are beholden to an ideology, and no longer to We the People.
Think I’ll slip in another famous Reagan quote while I’m here: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
I have learned there is great wisdom in avoiding what often gets called overreach. For this one, I like to use the term ‘stay in your lane’.
When it comes to leadership, it surely is wisdom to stay in your lane. If you have been given a leadership role somewhere, within an organisation say, or a department in the business world, then lead well in that department. Stay in your lane. It is always a mistake to try and throw your weight around in another area you are not responsible for. I’d call that leadership overreach.
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Any good dictionary will inform you overreach can happen on a ladder – you stretch out too far for something, further than is safe. Yep, I’ve done exactly that, once! It also offers: seeking to gain too much, or more than your authority allows. And thirdly I found this one: to get better by cunning; to outwit.
True with all leadership, and certainly true with governments. Surely unelected bureaucrats would take out the gold medal here though, closely followed by politicians with the silver.
Camouflaged in the name of science, our world-leading rural sector has had truckloads of this overreach ideology stuff dumped on us.
There is always a price to pay with such overreach, despite whatever excuses or spin might get offered up to justify it. Inevitably, there will be casualties.
Try respect, for starters. Following on from that, the next casualty will be trust.
Now, they might seem like not such a big deal, but in reality they are. What might come next, you wonder. Well, support will start to wane.
In today’s world, dissenting voices will need to be quieted. Important things, like free speech and the truth, will need to be clamped down on, with enforcing ‘laws’ enacted. Freedom will be curtailed. And truth may well become a casualty to the phrase, ‘It’s just another conspiracy theory’.
I have said it before and will say it again, truth can always stand on its own in the court of public opinion. Truth has never needed to be wrapped in the cotton wool of laws and slander to block out competing lies.
But for lies and deceptive agendas to survive and be established, they will need all the supportive ‘laws’ they can come up with. And we the sheeple will have no say.
Respect, trust, and support, can never be legislated… they can only be earned.
And yes, I do have Someone in my life who has earned all three!
God Bless.
