The James Taggart Presidency and the value of work

“Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice and need.” -Voltaire

Anyone who’s earned what they have should, by virtue of self-interest, be more apt to trust a person who’s earned their keep than one who’s managed theirs by pull, graft and favor. As Mark Levin noted on a recent (and hysterically funny) call-in to Fox Business Channel’s “Imus in the Morning” regarding the virtue of Gov. Palin, she’s a self-made woman.

For those who’ve earned their own, the notion of “other people’s money” isn’t an obscene joke, it’s what makes “civil” the civil servant’s duty.

Gov. Palin’s parents are surely good and decent people and she did well enough in college, but her volcanic eruption as a politician came primarily through hard work. There were no salons in the living rooms of well-connected Alaskans (until Gov. Palin came along, most of us could only name one powerful Alaskan, fwiw) introducing her to movers and shakers. Even a novice reading Going Rogue along with the other substantive books about Gov. Palin reveal that she tends to piss off more people in- and seeking power than she attracts. This is part of her charm – she is at her best when doing the least to cater to any status quo, be it on the Wasilla City Council or as the Veep candidate for John McCain.

If I had to name one aspect to Gov. Palin that attracts me as a supporter and a voter, I would state that she goes after people who seek power for power’s sake, followed closely by her work ethic. This is not accidental. Please recall that up to and including respected Conservative elder commentators Krauthammer and Will, she is despised. This is not only one of her biggest obstacles, it’s also one of her great attractions.

To be self-made, one often relies on the help of others. The cute way to state this is “a hand up, not a hand out.” The Big Idea is that most people who’ve come from modest circumstances to achieve great things have done so with a healthy dose of sweat equity, but few have ever done it alone. The point isn’t that Gov. Palin didn’t have any help, it’s that she’s accomplished what she has primarily by an overriding confidence in herself, and has snatched the opportunities presented her.

This is not a small matter – I don’t trust people who don’t work or aren’t actively looking for it. I loathe people I’ve worked with who complain about the job they were hired to do and the organization responsible for paying them. Just as I say avoid people who avoid working, I also say avoid people who bite the hand that feeds them.

The Obama Administration is all but absent people with experience formed, honed and matured in the private sector, and semiotically-speaking, anyone can see this in the fact that “trillion” is the new “billion.” The popular term for the eggheads steering the country into the ocean is “technocrats,” but they are the worst type of Utopians, those who imagine in theory how everything could be perfect if only we dupes in the private sector – those of us paying for this so-called Utopia - would just shut up and follow orders. They are the same adults who, when college students, were known to utter insipid banalities such as the popular, “in theory, Communism was a good idea.”

I return to work, the productive kind, the kind that, you know, produces stuff. I don’t get the sense that Pres. Obama was actually prepared for the idea that there’s a reason every man before him who didn’t have gray-white hair before entering the Oval Office left with it. He seems to be sort of annoyed by the idea that, uh, you have to do things other than read other people’s speeches, glad-hand dignitaries, bow to emperors, trot about the globe apologizing for the nation you represent and play golf. The problem with people who’ve never had to work – especially when elected to the job of POTUS – is that they have no understanding of leadership, what it takes and how difficult it is.

The Obama Narrative, itself drowned in millions of words, is one curiously lacking in private sector experience. Among detractors like me, he is best-known for his endless campaign that continues to this day, along with his penchant for voting “present.” There are the straw men, the “letmebeclears” and so forth, yet there are no absolutes, so far as I know.

To a large degree I’m an absolutist (think about that strange phrasing for a second) because I’ve spent my life working for myself and working for others, and above all, revering the idea that in America, we have the opportunity to work, to start businesses, to be employed by other private citizens, to earn our keep, to better ourselves and – importantly – to not be a burden on our neighbors if we are of sound mind and able body. When one earns their keep in the private sector as a business owner or an employee, one learns about absolutes. There is little room for tortured, nuanced debate regarding semantics and linguistics when decisions must be made that will affect the bottom line.

An easy example familiar to many of you: in an early exchange in Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart and her brother James are arguing about a decision that will affect their railroad, Taggart Transcontinental:

“That’s the trouble with you [Dagny]. You always make it ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ Things are never absolute like that. Nothing is absolute.”

“Metal rails are [James]. Whether we get them or not is.”

Welcome to the James Taggart Presidency. Pres. Obama is fearful of the yes or no vote, especially if it’s not directly tailored to his political vision, whatever that may be. There are absolutes in this world, and we are learning what happens when we elect a leader petrified by this fact.