True And Great

March 16, 2017 by kmabarrett

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

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On This Day In:
2022	Somebody Should Have Warned Putin About Ukraine
2021	No Plan And Less Sand
	It Might Sound Strange
2020	Why #45 Is In The Dark
	180 Day Health / Weight Update (Mar 2020)
2019	Tonight I Am All Blacks
	In All Its Messy Complexity
2018	Danger = Opportunity
2017	True And Great
	Sand At The Beach
2016	There Is A Difference Between Dangerous And Frightening
2015	Always A Goal
2014	Standing Strong
2013	Shaken And Stirred
	The Bird With The Broken Wing
2012	Friends In High Places
2011	Objective Independence

Posted in Leadership, My Journal, Quotes | Tagged Greatness, Leadership, Loyalty, My Journal, Quotes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Trust | 4 Comments

4 Responses

on March 16, 2017 at 5:07 am | Reply Marie Hunter Atwood

This is only common sense.
- on March 16, 2017 at 7:30 pm | Reply kmabarrett
  
  Hi Marie,
  LOL! You are correct, but as my 5th grade English teacher used to tell me: “Kevin, It is remarkable how uncommon common sense is.” Hence, how uncommon good leadership (let alone great leadership) is…
  - on March 16, 2017 at 10:53 pm | Reply Marie Hunter Atwood
    
    I agree with your English teacher and the rest of the line is ‘if common sense were common there would be more of it’. That’s why people like you and me have to use it, in order to up the amount that’s found around and about. I would never have voted for the President had there been a choice, but there wasn’t. However I believe he is doing a fantastic job especially considering half the population is against him and a large percent of the people who should be helping him as well. I voted for Obama because it looked as if it was time for a black president. I lived to regret that as he was bent on destroying the freedoms of this country as is Hillary (still). Nonetheless, I was never disrespectful in my words or my actions about Obama because he was the president and the office deserved the respect he could have had. This is what bothers me about the situation we are in. I fear it will lead much farther than many who are participating in these hate-minded things realize. Why they are unable to accept defeat is a mystery to me. Trump probably isn’t as bad morally as Kennedy was or for that matter F.D.R. and others of whom I have less knowledge.The one thing I felt sure about concerning Trump was his knowledge regarding money and I am quite sure that he is on the right track there to get us out of the financial mess Obama left us in. It is not you nor I who will suffer from all of that debt it is our children. Sorry, for the soap box. I don’t talk to many people about all of this although it might be a good idea if we could visit with others and discuss pros and cons amiably. Thanks for writing.
    - on March 20, 2017 at 9:21 pm | Reply kmabarrett
      
      Hi Marie,
      I apologize for my delay in responding to your comment, but I felt I needed to count to ten slowly, before responding…
      
      I’m afraid although I agree about the common sense portion of your reply, I will have to politely disagree with the entirety of the rest of your reply regarding Trump, Obama and Clinton. Trump is an incompetent buffoon. You or I could have made MUCH more money than him simply throwing darts at the stock market pages of the newspaper. He started off with over $100M in inheritance and despite his best efforts to fail at nearly every enterprise he ever entered, he is only worth and estimate of $3 billion. Using darts either of us would have been more successful. He just happened to be alive and in his prime earning years during the greatest wealth aggregation period in the history of humanity. How many “brilliant” businessmen lose money on gambling casinos? Selling steaks? Selling vodka?
      
      On top of that, he is a liar and a fraud of the highest order. He has done more to wreck the intelligence agencies and the State Department than any foreign power and he’s only been in office a little over 50 days. He is on track to ruin the environment (EPA), the Education Department and the economy. He wants to build a wall to keep Mexicans out when we (the U.S.) have been in a negative migration pattern with Mexico for almost 10 years. The wall will cost upwards of $25 Billion, and the reality is that MOST illegal aliens enter the country through airports and ship ports – and – wait for it – do it legally!! The problem is they then overstay their visas.
      
      I voted for President Obama because Senator McCain supported the use of torture after 9/11. Prior to that, while I disagreed with almost all of his policies, at least I had some respect for him. But I will never be able to forgive him for introducing Sarah Palin to modern political discourse and thinking she should ever be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. What a terrifying thought!
      
      I would appreciate it if you could list a single way in which President Obama has weakened – let alone destroyed – a single freedom you or this country has.
      
      As for opposition to Trump… The day after Obama was elected, the Republicans declared publicly their sole goal was to make him a one term President and opposed EVERY action he tried to do to make America better or safer. They even opposed (not a single affirmative vote) a health care law developed by a Conservative think tank and tested (successfully) by Governor Romney in Massachusetts. Obama repeatedly proposed jobs and infrastructure packages to stimulate the economy and boost us out of the recession, but he was continuously hamstrung by the Republicans. Despite this opposition, Obama was President during the longest continuous employment growth period in American history (75 months) and the doubling of stock market.
      
      I will concede there were both increased deficit and national debt. But, please recall that a large portion of this was because President Bush (“W”), was the first President in American history to try to fight two wars and cut taxes. He carried the costs of the wars ($2 Billion per week) “off books” with “emergency funding” so the debt would not “show up” in his “official” budget requests. Obama put this debt / money “on the books” and then included it in every budget moving forward. The other large part of the deficit spending was to carry folks who were made unemployed by the recession. You remember that don’t you? Where the Bush Administration was losing 800,000 jobs A MONTH and the financial industry (and the auto industry) were on the verge of collapse… President Obama finished his second term having saved the auto industry and adding over 10 million jobs during his two terms – despite Republican obstruction and having the first two years of his first term in the struggle to get out of the recession.
      
      Trump is FAR worse than Kennedy or F.D.R. – morally and in every other way. Neither of them cheated on small business men simply because they could, yet both were equally wealthy (for their time). Please recall, the “Bus Tape” was recorded after he’d married his third wife and he was complaining about not being able to commit adultery with a married woman.
      
      Trump will NEVER get us out of our economic mess and he has no intention of trying. He is only interested in enriching himself at the expense of the American public. What happened to the self-financed campaign he was supposed to run. He was NEVER going to be beholden to Wall Street. Why are two of his cabinet secretaries from Goldman-Sachs? You remember them, don’t you? The guys who supposedly owned Hilary and who she was going to reward when she got elected…
      
      Let’s see now, two months in office and already under suspicion for collusion with an enemy foreign power (that’s short hand for Russia). If I wasn’t more afraid of Mike Pence, I’d be hoping for President Trump’s impeachment. Unfortunately, he’ll simply do a Nixon / Ford and resign so he can be replaced by Ryan. Yes, Pence will also resign. Pence was in charge of the transition team which was advised by Flynn that he was a foreign agent, yet still let the good, retired, “lock her up” general sit in on Top Secret briefings because Trump is too lazy to attend the daily Presidential briefings. Pence either knew Flynn was a potential traitor and disregarded this knowledge for political gain, or he was too incompetent to realize he was handing a foreign agent the keys to the Oval Office. Either way, Pence should be impeached or he should resign.
      
      The “BEST” we can hope for out of a Trump presidency is that he can accidentally bring us some jobs by spending money on a useless wall and throwing money at the military. Unfortunately, I think he’s more likely to screw up health care, the economy, give another tax break to the 1% and hurt the military (by crippling the State Department, Trump practically guarantees more conflicts somewhere in the world). I’m only praying he doesn’t get us into a nuclear war. And, yes, I am praying for my country – every Sunday at Mass and most other days when I listen to the news.
      
      Ok. Now, I’ll get off my soap box…
      
      I hope I haven’t upset you too much with my reply. I do value your visits and your comments. I do welcome your response and I hope you will make the time to respond because I am genuinely interested in why you feel the way you do about former President Obama. Hilary was not my first choice. I was “feelin’ the Bern”, but he didn’t get the nomination. If you choose not to reply, I will understand. Perhaps we will have to simply agree to disagree and let history decide which of us is correct…
      
      Kevin