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Are Men (and Women) Who Claim to be Leaders, But Won’t or Can’t Defend Their Positions, Leaders?

2007-08-10
By

 In our American, representative form of government (such as it is), it is ”We the people” who theoretically have the right to choose who will speak for us and who will not.

As we enter this Presidential campaign season, it is especially important that we critically and thoroughly examine the platforms of all the candidates to see if they honestly and truly represent us.

In our personal lives, it is no less important that we examine the position statements of people in lesser leadership positions, who claim to represent us and claim to lead us.

I’ve often wondered about men (and women) at all levels of leadership, who are so devoid of support for their own biased viewpoints that they can’t tolerate the opinions (and criticisms) of others.   Such people, in my opinion, are quick to attack and label others as deficient, using a host of logical fallacies, but are deficient in defending the weaknesses in their own positional statements.   Such people, in my opinion, are so obsessed with exclusively imposing their biased positions (power and control) that they have been known to resort to totalitarian tactics to defend their deficient viewpoints.   On websites such as this one (and others), in my opinion,  some have even resorted to tactics  like the deletion of valid posts and the turning off of comments to impose their biased viewpoints and restrict free speech.   It appears to me that the “freedom” of the Internet already has a number of  restrictions on free speech, thanks to totalitarian rhetoric coming from some tyrannical propagandists.

I would caution all people to be very, very, very wary of people who restrict their freedom of speech, escpecially those claiming to be leaders.   It is a sad, but revealing truth that those who trade freedom for the illusion of peace, in reality, have neither.

The suspect theories and opinions of people who claim to be leaders, but shield their viewpoints from open discussion are not, in my opinion, the leaders they claim to be.  The history of tyranny in the world is marked by a long trail of people claiming to be leaders, but in reality have been so deficient in leadership qualities, that they strip away the freedoms of a free society, one by one.   Sadly, as we have seen with gender feminists, one of the first freedoms to be attacked , regulated and eventually denied totally is the freedom of speech.  

 Are Men’s Rights Activist not human too, and being human are Men’s Rights Activists not capable of human failings and deficiencies?  Yes, we ALL are certainly less than perfect humans, and the beauty of free speech, gifted to us by our Founding Fathers, is that it affords us the beauty of a system of checks and balances, wherein even the lowliest among us has a voice to say, “I question that position, because…” or “I disagree, because…” or “I agree, because…” etc.

By all means, I invite everyone at Men’s News Daily and the entire Internet to discuss and criticize this article to their hearts content.  By all means, have at it.  If I can’t defend my viewpoints, or I seek to close comments, I suggest that my viewpoints are likely indefensible and should be viewed with great suspicion in part, or in whole.

As to my own leadership qualifications, the last time I submitted a resume’ for a job, the job application said, “Please submit all documentation that in any way could support your qualifications for this job.”  Without going into detail, let me just say, that I weighed the envelope before I mailed it.  It weighed exactly 16 ounces (one pound), and it was all education and training subsequent to High School.  Do I feel I have leadership qualifications?  Humbly, yes, and primarily in the participative style as described in business management texts. http://www.maxvalue.com/tip024.htm

Participative Management

excerpt from “Best Practices in Project Evaluation and Influence on Company Performance,” by John Schuyler, Journal of Petroleum Technology (JPT), Society of Petroleum Engineers, August, 1997, pp 818-823. Technical professionals are increasingly expected to be businesspersons also. The modern corporation is challenged in too many ways for a traditional hierarchy to perform well; timely decisions are necessary to be competitive. Organizations are being reengineered to be flatter so that decisions can be made by people close to the action. A more loosely defined organization structure can self-adapt to changing business conditions and current projects. Participative management has been around a long time. The themes were formalized and popularized by behavioral scientists as Blake and Mouton (Managerial Grid), MacGregor (Theory X and Theory Y), and Lickert (Four-Model Systems). The central idea is that empowered employees will feel better about their jobs and be more productive.

 Participative management goes by many names. A recent buzzword is open book management (OBM). This is an emerging, repackaged approach for managing businesses and other organizations. Thousands of businesses that have adopted this style are already running their unique versions. OBM has three central ideas:  

A culture of trust where there is ready access to information needed to do one’s job (hence the name, “open book management”; not necessarily all company information, but sufficient for employees to gauge company performance)  

Incentive compensation system, of some form, where employees have a stake in the business outcome, good or bad.  

Business literacy training so that employees can understand the business.  

Everyone is to understand his or her role in the enterprise and how to the company is doing. The OBM strategy is to build a community of business-people where employees increasingly think and care like owners.  

—John Schuyler, August 1997Copyright © 1997 by John R. Schuyler. All rights reserved. Permission to copy with reproduction of this notice.

additionally: 

 Matthew 20: 27 “And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:”

Too me, it has been one of the highest honors in my life to have served at the side of qualified, hard working men and women, working proactively together to achieve positive outcomes to positive goals.  Their input has been invaluable to my own successes.  Believe me, I’d much rather follow someone better than I, someone more qualified to lead, if they are available.  It’s certainly easier.  However, nothing is more difficult, and counter productive, than following leaders unfit to lead, whose ideas are not even open to valid ways to improve them, IMO.

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Didn't make Oprah's Book Club. And Ronnie doesn't care. Man up. Buy the book now on Amazon.com. Or listen to Ronnie tell a story at escaping-from-reality.com.


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  • http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle

    #73: Proof that George is using MND as a recruitment ground in an effort to build a cult of willing followers.

    Remember – George was a career Navy man. During his career, he must have become quite comfortable with all the obedient men around him. Now that he is retired, George may be attempting to rebuild his petty empire – but this time without the oversight of his superior officers.

    Over the past few years of posting here, George has made an effort to gather a mailing list of followers. At this point he may even have a substantial list of these lackeys. The fact that so many of these flies have suddenly disappeared after I closed his last thread leads me to believe that George has ordered his followers to boycott MND in a kind of power play. :-)

    If my speculation is correct, then this is actually quite a good thing, because in doing so George has smoked himself out.

    If my speculation is true, then this would be substantial proof that George really is entirely disinterested in advancing the sorry state of men and father’s in America.

    Instead, George – like so many other apocalyptic and petty dictators before him – wants power. Just power.

    All this BS about ‘patriarchy’ is merely a means to that end.

  • Ray Blumhorst

    “More proof Usher had it right.”

    About what?

  • http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle

    UPDATE: The blogwonks database is all there… but I’m having trouble connecting up the comments with the articles.

    Also, since I’m on dialup, my ability to move these large databases back and forth between MND and blogwonks is greatly restricted.

    And then there’s Flossie. (Actually, up to now at least, all the worry and hype around these parts seems to be adding up to…. big surf. But then, the night is still quite young.)

    I’m getting a lot of positive reaction from the MRA academic set over MND’s new editorial direction.

    George’s followers, however, seem to have evaporated en masse… almost as though they had all received the same ‘boycott’ memo at the same time….

    More proof Usher had it right.

    Cheers indeed.

  • Ray Blumhorst

    “As we were crawling among the stacks of boxes and paper-wrapped furniture, a 5.3 magnitude earthquake hit, and suddenly the carport and everything in it seemed like it was bouncing on a trampoline.’

    When the 6.7, 1994 Northridge earthquake hit the devastation was massive. Block walls fell on my property and all around the area, among other greater damage. Less than a mile from my house multistory apartments, pan caked and otherwise collapsed. The closest death in my neighborhood, an electrocution, was less than a mile from me. The 94 quake was about 8 miles deep, very shallow for an earthquake.

    I pilled up the broken blocks from the block wall that collapsed onto my backdoor step and was happy (in a shaken way) my dog had not been sleeping there that early morning. A few days later there was a 5.0 aftershock, the biggest of the aftershocks as I recall. It too got my attention as the house swayed and shook. Months later after scores and scores of aftershocks, I suddenly froze in my tacks and starred at all those blocks I had loosely piled up the day after the big one of 94. Every single block was exactly in position I’d put it in the day after the earthquake. Wow, I thought, nothing subsequent to that 6.7 could even knock down a pile of loosely stacked bricks, but a 6.7 can tear down cemented together block walls like a child knocking over toys.

    …one of many seismic learning experiences from the land of shaky earth.

    I’m glad to hear the earthquake in Hawaii wasn’t any worse than it was Mike and hope you and your’s stay safe in the upcoming hurricane I’m hearing about.

  • http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle

    “It is about character Mr, whomeever you really are.”

    Oh, thurston, shaddup.

    Are we fretting about internet aliases again?

    Tell ya what, let’s have a little multiple choice test. Of the list below, which is the REAL name, and which is the spine-chilling internet alias?

    1. Mike LaSalle
    2. Rip Torn
    3. Boy George
    4. Elder George

    As a product of a Christian Brothers education, I consider Jean-Baptiste de La Salle something of a spiritual father…

    I have no idea where the other guys got their aliases.

  • http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle

    DadWith2Girls – with google’s policy changes, MND’s global profile has suddenly lurched much higher by magnitudes.

    Here’s an example: As some people already know, I have just moved with my family to the Big Island of Hawaii, about 30 minutes south of Hilo.

    Last night, in preparation for the expected hurricane, my 16-year old son and I were lashing down the bulk of or worldly possessions in the car port of our house. (The house is still being painted, so I am camped out with my three kids in an outbuilding on the property. BTW – I did not buy the house myself – it belongs to my wife. My credit is so trashed right now I couldn’t finance a dollar raffle ticket at the church bazaar.)

    As we were crawling among the stacks of boxes and paper-wrapped furniture, a 5.3 magnitude earthquake hit, and suddenly the carport and everything in it seemed like it was bouncing on a trampoline.

    As a California native, I have lived through many earthquakes, including the San Francisco earthquake of 1989. All I can tell you is that I am impressed.

    After the quake, I walked back to the Ohana and wrote up a news report on the event, and posted it to MND.

    In post number 23 above, I explained that the google news spider has now begun to index ALL posts to MND – not just my selections.

    Last night I discovered that google.com has also changed its indexing policy for MND.

    In the past, articles posted to the home page of mensnewsdaily.com were generally available on google.com after about two or three days.

    An hour after I posted the article to MND (and I did NOT post it to MND’s home page), the article showed up as the first result at google.com for the search term “earthquake strikes hilo” (Try it yourself.)

    Any person on planet earth who did a search for that term on google.com could read my article just a few minutes after I posted it.

    That’s power, folks. And – to quote spiderman – with great power comes great responsibility…

    Oppps…. here comes the hurricane. I’ll have to check in a little later.

    Cheers!

  • thurston861

    Oh yes Mr. Usher, your list of accomplishments were already undermined by your own admission that after 19 years it has come to naught, as all legislation was undermined by judges and lawyers.

    You pinned the tail on the Guild just as the Patriots have, and you dare to call others nut-cases…

    I am happy I am not the only one who sees how much of a sleezy weasle you are and the same trecherous and treasonous DNA matter as your Grandmother.

    Nothing you have said has surprised me at all. I know your type, you will lead many to nothing but exasperation.

    You serve your masters well, so you need to go get a raise ao tell them you refuse to work for free anymore.

  • thurston861

    Mike, your calling me any numver of names to describe one who is not altogether present is not going to change the fact that your little bicameral universe idea is crap in comparison to not only the beliefs of most of the People here who call themselves Chrisitans, but ORthodox Jews as well.

    It is not going to change the short sightedness of the alleged leader you have put your stake behind.

    It is not going to change the fact that he attacks at will and then censors his own blog comments.

    It is about character Mr, whomeever you really are.

    People see that.

    Something better will one day come along, and you will be forgotten. As well as Stalinist Usher, and Mr. ‘I support extra-constitutional Rights for some perverted men to use your Sons and sperm recepticles” Sacks, and let’s not forget character assasin-Rudov.

    Something better will come, and they will be forgotten. So will you.

  • WLS

    That the gender feminists have “vast resources” is an unfortunate, unfounded urban legend that functions to excuse inaction and non-engagement in politics among fathers and men. The feminists have the upper hand at the moment because of past successes in capturing public support: they are now in organizational terms a true fringe effort, that prevails more often only because the opposition is even more pathetic.

  • WLS

    That it’s true that there’s no one “in the Father’s and men’s movement who is getting rich off it” makes it all the more inexcusable that some compromise it so much to such petty purpose. The fellow who said Darren Mack had shamefully tried to exploit other fathers’ problems for the sake of his own rear-end is as good an example of how `it takes one to know one’ as we are ever likely to see.

  • DadWith2Girls

    Mike LaSalle – “In the next 24 hours – after I have backed up MND’s mirror at blogwonks.com – I will be turning off commenting at MND.”

    Is this all about legal liability?

    You are going to turn MND into a passing billboard on a vacuous highway to nowhere….

    Man, you have invested so much of yourself…. time, energy, passion, and money…

    And you are going to abort that idealistic project because you are currently disappointed?

    Take a vacation, Mike, and reflect….

    Go to anyplace “unwired….” for a few days….

    Then, with composure …. decide.

    (I personally recommend Carriacou … in the Grenadines. Even your cell won’t work there…)

  • Ray Blumhorst

    Well, I’ve always believed that a truly dedicated professional who is filling a needed niche with his/her services, should work to be so successful that he/she eliminates the need for his/her services entirely. A dedicated professional should work so hard that the problem they are trying to fix is remedied and their services aren’t even needed anymore – the job is done.

    I think most MRAs wish most MRA professionals every success and realize that in today’s gender feminized legal system their services will be in need for a long time. Sadly, they will probably have problems with making a living, because they are trying to make a living amongst a lot of men who are financially broke. Sadly, they will probably have problems functioning, because gender feminists will just overwhelm them with the vast resources they have and the MRA professionals just can’t keep up.

    A lot of MRAs are financially in the hole as far as the bottom line on their MRA work, but the need is enormous and the cause righteous. I have never encountered anyone in the Father’s and men’s movement who is getting rich off it. However, gender feminists, judges, lawyers, etc. seem to be doing okay off the systematic persecution and discrimination against Fathers and men.

  • MoreMoore

    WLS is just jealous of Sacks–every comment he makes reeks of his envy. He’s also jealous of other movers and shakers–Mike Robinson in Sacramento in particular, and also Mike LaSalle and anybody else who has any success. For WLS, there will always be some “reason” why whatever these gentelmen do isn’t right. The only way they can please WLS is to not be successful, and in these cases that doesn’t seem likely.

  • WLS

    The criticism of Sacks that I’ve seen, and indeed tried to further, is NOT for his making money, but for his STIFLING AND IMPEDING OF GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM—which for all the world appears to be related to the priority he gives his media company and his self-interest in promoting himself as a personality.

    If the latter observation is however, somehow wrong, that fact does not cancel the deep damage he’s doing to children and fathers unhelped by the cultivation of celebrity and production of entertainment, but yearning for family law reform where it actually counts.

  • Ray Blumhorst

    Sorry Mike, I accidently hit the edit button on your post# 56. As you can see the spacing is now “off.” As soon as I was in, I realized I was in the wrong post so I exited and did not change anything you said in that post one iotta.

  • Ray Blumhorst

    I want to see some attempt at burying the hatchet fellas. Let’s see some maturity and fellowship. You don’t have to like each other to work for the same end but you do have to be pulling on the same end of the friggin’ rope.

    Yep.

    I was just reading this book called Evangelical Feminism, A New Path to Leadership?, by Wayne Gruden, Crossway Books, 2006. It’s one of two books on evangelical feminism in the Church that I recently bought.

    Here, on Pp. 33 seems to be somewhat of a restatement of what you say, from a Church leader perspective, who exhibits some real Christian leadrship principles, IMO.

    “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth… (2Tim 2:24-25).”

    “No matter how seriously we differ with other brothers and sisters in Christ, we must we must continue to treat them with kindness and love. We must continue to report their positions truthfully without distortion or misrepresentation.

    A number of egalitarian leaders today grew up in strict, harsh, even oppressive environments that taught “male leadership” from the Bible but did so without love or without respect and honor for the equal value of women in our Churches and before God, and without promoting and honoring the valuable ministries of women in their church. If you support what I say in this book, I ask you please be careful not to make the same mistake as others have made and thereby drive other gifted women into the egalitarian camp.”

    It appears to me the same should be said by Church leadership about the way males are treated in the Church these days with all the witch-hunting of males going on in society, and the acquiescence by Churches to VAWA and other misandrist laws and policies.

  • Ray Blumhorst

    Good luck Mike. Thanks for all the times you have allowed me to post at MND. Best of everything to MND.

  • Ray Blumhorst

    “I did not start these assaults, nor did I ask for them.”

    I adamantly disagree. You appear to me to be trying to push a pro-marriage message and others have exercised their valid free speech rights in opposition to the dangers and damage effecting men by marriage. You apparently can’t handle that – people having an opinion different from your own on marriage. You appear to me to have been off the deep end with ad hominem attacks, name calling, and false accusations ever since. For someone who closed comments on his own thread, you appear very obsessed to come here and attack the free speech of others with impunity.

    As far as leadership ability, personally I wouldn’t trust your leadership enough to follow you to the grocery store on the corner, and I seriously hope others give your exhibition of “leadership style” some serious consideration.

    Before, I was not going to the August 18th event in Washington, because of the great distance, but now you can consider my absence at this point a boycott of the verbally abusive speech, IMO, exhibited by you on this thread to myself and others. How dare you say I am “doing the NOW gang’s dirty work,” in post #39. That is a very directly vicious, hurtful, and fallacious thing to say, IMO, and appears to say a lot about a person who would say such a thing, especially without even knowing the other person. In fact, it says nothing truthful about the person the statement is directed at, and I condemn that statement and all the rest of the, in my opinion, vicious, fallacious, libelous ad hominem attacks made by you in their entirety.

  • http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle

    Those who have been watching this website for its entire six-year history are already aware that I am extraordinarily slow to anger.

    However – as evidenced the events of 2002 – once my ire has been breached, all bets are off.

    Back in 1998, when I lived in Marin County, I served as a juror on a highly publicized sanity hearing involving the disposition of a death row inmate named Horace Kelly. When the evidence phase of trial ended after about a month, my fellow jurors elected me their foreman. They did so, I believe, because they correctly judged that – while I am quite passionate – I am also resolutely fair, logical, and committed to the Truth wherever it may lead me.

    My fellow jurors, on the other hand, were perhaps more typical of the average citizen: they were (IMO) less interested in analyzing the raw facts of the case, and more inclined make decisions on the basis of emotional reaction.

    I’m certain they were all very surprised when I – their popularly elected Foreman – voted to find that Horace Kelly was insane – and thus should not be eligible for the death penalty.

    The only other person who voted with me at first was a quiet Scandanavian woman who simply said, “I agree with Michael.” A third juror eventually changed her vote on the final ballot – but only after it was obvious that Kelly was going be found ‘sane’ by the majority.

    The final jury vote was 9-3.

    I was subsequently quoted by the New York Times, LA Times, as well as local TV news stations. ABC’s 20-20 visited me at home for an interview as well.

    As I have already written elsewhere, I am not one for cameras, lights and the glaring fanfare of public attention.

    I am simply not interested in fame, and I didn’t respond well to clamoring reporters. I think that’s why the 20-20 interview never aired on ABC.

    A few days after the major media left, an anti-death penalty videographer visited me at my home and conducted an extensive interview with me. He incorporated much of this interview into a self-styled “documentary” on the trial.

    I put part of this video on the web (LINK). My bits come in the middle and near the end of the clip. I’m labeled as the Jury Foreman with my real last name (which is not LaSalle).

    The point of all this is to prove to any reader that I am NOT swayed by reaction, murky emotions, or by groupthink.

    I will always follow my own conscience regardless of whom it may offend.

    I have proven this many times before. I am about to prove it again.

    In the next 24 hours – after I have backed up MND’s mirror at blogwonks.com – I will be turning off commenting on the home page.

    All registered MND users and authors will have corresponding accounts at blogwonks.com. You need only log in with your usual username and password. If you have forgotten your password, you can reset it using the wordpress login screen.

    Users and authors are invited to post articles and comments at blogwonks.com going forward. Links to blogwonks articles will be displayed on the home page of MND.

  • Ray Blumhorst

    Julie, the article was merely trying to explain that people who claim to be leaders of a certain viewpoint (be it a Men’s Rights leader or whatever) should be able to answer questions, and discuss and defend their position in fair and open debate – sort of like the Presidential candidates are presently doing. If they can’t do that do they really have a position you want to follow? Are they really a leader you want to follow?

  • David R. Usher

    I did not start these assaults, nor did I ask for them. I am completely sick of the nuts in this movement.

  • rastus

    This kind of gratuitous spear-throwing is what prompted me to resign from NCFM ten years ago, and to drop out of any active role in the men’s movement, and focus more on the larger political arena. It is destructive and just plain stupid.

    Each person has his own role to play in achieving the overall goal we seek. Please, people, let’s stop this incessant backbiting and recognize that all of us have a valid and useful place in the overall effort, before the movement is discredited entirely.

    Look, I don’t agree 100% with what everyone in the movement says or does, but I’ve watched these guys over the years, and they do accomplish good and useful things. Usher has been particularly effective in his admittedly limited realm in Missouri, for instance, and if others could mimic that effort elsewhere or if Dave had the support to expand his efforts more, we might actually achieve something.

    I’ve also seen criticism of Sacks for making money off his activism and promoting himself, but isn’t that precisely how Rush Limbaugh became the de facto conservative spokesman for the nation, a man capable of making or breaking a candidacy? Seems to me that we ought to be encouraging Glenn, even if we don’t agree precisely with every position he takes, because the alternative to getting only most of what we want is getting none of what we want.

    I think Ben Franklin said it best when he cautioned the American revolutionaries that, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

  • http://www.singleparents.org.nz julie

    Mike LaSalle,

    I agree with college activist on #44

  • http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle

    Notice: I am at this very moment uploading the full MND comment database to blogwonks.com. I’m on dialup, so this will probably take a few more hours (the comment database is nearly 50 megabytes).

    After I have completed this migration, MND will be shutting down the chatterbox.

    I still believe most comments are very worthwhile, but the likes of WLS, dittihd, thurston and the other screwballs make it very unpalatable for me personally.

    I will continue to allow more or less unrestricted comments at blogwonks.com, but MND is cracking down.

    If people have a problem with this, you need to take it up with WLS, dickhd, and the other purveyors of chaos.

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Right.

Man up.

Buy the book now on Amazon.com. Or listen to Ronnie tell a story at escaping-from-reality.com.

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