Moral Leadership

This is about Moral Leadership in the United States and the World. To start off with, perhaps I should define what "moral" means, in my view of the term. In my mind, moral does not mean religious, though many people seem to think that it does. I see morality as differentiating between right and wrong---I see morality as doing what is right and just and compassionate---as acting in a fashion that is respectful and loving of your fellow human beings and of the earth as a whole, and, naturally, not taking unnecessary action to harm your fellows and the earth---as demonstrating the common human decency which unites us all but which we often forget unites us. Acting upon these basic principles and ideas is, in my view, the definition of moral leadership. There is nothing religious about these ideas, unless religiosity is the same as humanity, and the human race and religion are not synonymous (the ideas within the Bible and other documents, it seems to me, however heretical this may be, are simply expressions of humanity).

So, now that I have informed you of my view of moral leadership, I suppose that the next thing to do is examine whether the United States's leadership has been consistently moral during the 20th and 21st centuries, the modern era. I am personally inclined to the opinion that morality has not been the primary concern of most leaders. I will provide some examples. During the years 1959 to 1975, fifty-eight thousand American soldiers were killed, over three hundred thousand were wounded, and millions of south-east Asian civilians were killed in the Vietnam War, a war that was sustained by lies and deceptions from American leaders. During the 1990's, five hundred thousand children died in Iraq for lack of adequate medical care, due to sanctions by the U.S. Government. During the years 2003 to 2008, over four thousand American soldiers--young men and women--have died in the Iraq War, as have tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, as the result of a purposeful deception by American leaders. And the United States is now also under criticism for the Iraqi displacement crisis: millions of Iraqis, over three million, have fled the country since the March 2003 United States invasion--a deplorable state of affairs. There have obviously been a number of leaders in recent history who have disregarded the restraints of conscience.

Recalling these historical and current events, it occurs to me that politics is an occupation where little to nothing is framed in moral terms, and yet it is the occupation which most requires morality, and deeply-heartfelt compassion, towards our fellow human beings. It is the occupation in which you have the most responsibility, in which the most lives are placed in your hands. Unfortunately, as Mao Tse-tung observed, "Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed." Harming your fellow human beings, especially unnecessarily, in warfare and other avenues, seems to me to be the height of immorality in leadership.

Perhaps, we as a country should ask ourselves a few questions regarding this current Iraq War and displacement crisis (though the questions could be just as applicable in other eras of United States history), using advanced interrogation techniques if necessary. We should ask: should we treat our fellow human beings better than this? Should we cause such upheaval and shatter so many lives? I suppose that what we should be asking ourselves, in moral terms, is if, as a country and as a people, we have the right to inflict such pain and suffering upon another people of another country? In my personal opinion, I answer with a resounding NO. I don't believe that we have the right to do these things--rather, I think that we have the responsibility, as the foremost superpower of the world, to refrain from abusing our power by attacking poorer countries than ours. The most powerful country is the one that should govern itself with the most wisdom and restraint, because it has the potential to inflict the most damage upon the earth. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." In my judgement, that statement, made decades ago, rings true to this day.

I have defined what my idea of moral leadership is, and I have provided examples of leadership which has not been particularly moral during the modern era. What to do now? Well, naturally, I would like to provide my ideas on why leaders are so often tempted to immorality---and I would like to express my ideas on the age-old question of whether humankind is inherently good or inherently evil.

You often hear the argument about whether humankind is inherently good, and moral, or inherently evil. Naturally, when I hear an argument, I can't help but join in and provide my two cents, whether they are two wheat pennies from the 1800's or two old beaten up pennies from the year 2006. As an argumentative creature of the highest order, I feel inclined to assert my belief that, when a person is born, they have a natural tendency towards one side of the spectrum (of good and evil) or the other, but human beings do have both good and bad in them, and their conditions in life, and living in general, determines how exactly these tendencies develop---or if they do. Morality or immorality is not inherent in us--we all are split, we all have to choose according to our own developed characters. Though we may lean greatly towards one or the other, we will always, for the entirety of our lives, have some of both good and evil in us. It seems to me that humanity, fallible and wonderful, is what is truly inherent in us all.

And I am afraid that the leaders of humanity are no exception to this rule (of course; rulers are no less human than the ruled). But, for the leaders, an extra factor is added to how they slide along the good-evil spectrum, a factor which most people living daily life do not have or choose to take part in: power. Leaders of the human race, with great corrupting power in their hands, are very often tempted to the immoral side of themselves. They are tempted to embark upon unjust wars to increase their own power, and other such acts. To resist this, a leader must have extraordinary character, or have constant oversight to ensure that they do not abuse their powers---in many cases, such as initiating an unjust war or secretly torturing people, power abuse can be quite immoral. Leaders who are not provided with oversight very often succumb to their temptations. Power corrupts the fallible human being. The act of having abusable power adds another dimension to the human mind, a dimension in which human morality, and human conscience, is challenged.