Think big about what you can achieve, think small about how to achieve it.  ~ General Bill Creech

A kakistocracy cannot be overthrown in one election. Sorry … wish it could be … but it can’t. This won’t happen in 2012. We need to think small to achieve big.

I said from the start I was looking for some good people. So the question now comes down to who is “good people?” People capable of overthrowing the kakistocracy. People who are willing to fight so that the bad people don’t prevail.

Qualification #1 of being a good people:

Someone who doesn’t believe in lying to kids. Even if they think that is the only way to “get through” to them.

Are we in agreement? It is bad to lie to kids?

Qualification #2 of being a good people:

Someone who reads. Then reads and reads and reads some more.

The issues that you will confront as an elected official … will present problems unheard of by you in the past. A new experience would be an understatement. This job requires work and 95% of that work is reading. Why so much reading?

Someone who reads is someone who will develop good questions. Asking questions is just as important as giving answers. But you will never come up with good questions without first reading. It is the job of elected officials to come up with the good questions, because asking good questions  is the path to finding good solutions.

How about that?    We still together here?   Reading is good?

Qualification #3 of being a good people …

Someone who wants to improve themselves by taking advantage of as much training as possible. Someone who wants to go somewhere, learn something new and bring it back home.

Every newly elected official starts out at that position as a Rookie. A very raw Rookie. They have a lot to learn. The good ones try to learn as much as possible to make themselves better in their job and the bad ones don’t. Pretty basic.

That’s it people. That’s all we need to overthrow the kakistocracy. People who don’t lie … like to read … and are willing to learn and get better at their jobs.

Anyone disagree with that? Can we agree that most people who don’t lie …like to read … and like to learn … are usually pretty good people  and would make good candidates for local office?

So good people what next?

So specifically what do you good people need to do to overthrow the kakistrocracy? Here it is folks. This is how to Overthrow the kakistocracy.

You need to learn who your local elected officials are. Not just their names. Their faces. You have to go to meetings and observe them. Listen to them. Are they someone you are proud to call YOUR representative?

Your Alderman or your Town Board Official, your School Board representative, your County Board Supervisor.  All of them. Learn who they are. Learn what they do.

Yes, this will take some time and work. Did you think Overthrowing a kakistocracy decades in the making would be easy?

Learn when the different elections are.  Did your representatives run un-opposed last time?

You pick one out  and you run against them. You make sure they do not get elected again without opposition. If they win again they are going to be better than you not better than nobody.

I said earlier that I scout politicians for weaknesses to exploit. In order to overthrown the kakistocracy we are going to go right after those weaknesses.

Exploit the weaknesses in the kakistocracy. The great un-unopposed. This is where we start to infiltrate the kakistocracry.

Guess what? Many of you will win. You betcha. Many of you would win. The voting public is just itching to get rid of a whole slew of incompetent politicians.

Like I’ve said this kakistocracy can’t be overthrown in one election. It can’t happen in 2012. This will be a 6 month to 2 year process for you. You should investigate all your options before deciding on which office to run for.

Can overthrowing the kakistocracy be as simple as making it a goal never to have un-opposed elections? Will more and thus better candidates at the bottom insure more and better candidates at the top?

Will the candidate polishing process work?

You got a better idea? We gotta start the kakistocracy revolution someplace. I say start at the bottom… the very bottom… the great masses of unopposed.

Let’s review.

Together we have determined a kakistocracy exists.

Together we have have agreed that it will take “good people” to overthrow this kakistocracy.

Together we have agreed that you are “good people.”

What do other people think of this plan?

How about former President Theodore Roosevelt …

“The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that they shall be able and willing to pull their weight.  

Or how about Mohamed Ali …

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.  

One last quote .  How about the cartoon character Pogo  who said …

We have met the enemy and he is us.

The Kakistocracy Revolution starts with you. If you don’t overthrow this kakistocracy I don’t know who will.

If good people don’t get involved in the political process … the bad people will prevail.

Join the Kakistocy Revolution today.

Just how big is this kakistocracy that needs to be overthrown? Think of the nation as a pyramid.

There are over 85,000 local units of government. (County, City, School, Lake Districts, Utility Districts, etc.)

The base of this pyramid is huge. Number wise huge.

What we have here is the foundation of the country. The foundation of our country is not at the top … it is at the bottom.

The natural progression in most professions is for individuals to start at the bottom, prove their abilities and move up if that is their desire. This would mean the best of the local government officials would learn the craft of politics in the trenches  before moving up.

Let me stop here and acknowledge the many,  many fine outstanding individuals that reside in this pool. All are not incompetent. Oh no the entire pool is not incompetent. Those that are not incompetent do need need a lot of help though. I also do not want to disparage those that are incompetent. Many times a person does not know if they are competent or not at a task until they try it. The turnover after one term is huge. I don’t have a statistic for it … but it is huge. One term and out. This politics ain’t for me they say. Nothing wrong with that. You don’t know until you try.

Think of this pool of local elected officials as inside a “politician polisher.” Very similar to a “rock polisher.” A rock polisher smooths off rough edges and polishes the rock to the point where either it’s beauty or its flaws are exposed. This politician polisher  does the same. It smooths off the rough edges of politicians and exposes either the beauty or the flaws of each individual in this job.

Not all local officials will have the desire to run for state or national office. Not all local officials are capable. That is part of the polishing process. Happens in all careers. It is healthy.

However, when the candidate pool at the bottom is of poor quality, the candidate pool at the top is the same. In order to overthrow this incompetent kakistocracy we need to improve the quality of the candidate pool  starting at the bottom.

What we have now is  2/3 of these local races being run un-opposed.  The vote cast for the candidate running is better than nobody. NOBODY!

As a general rule the smaller the government unit the more likely an unopposed election. The majority … the majority… of many local government boards or councils were elected unopposed. A majority these boards are  better than nobody. Believe me. Based on my decades of not just watching but scouting elected officials I have found the more unopposed candidates serving on a board … the better the chances the board as a whole are better than nobodies.

All these unopposed elections also makes for a poor quality candidate pool at the bottom. If you only have to beat nobody  that makes it waaaaaay too easy for bad people to prevail.

What happens when we have poor quality at the bottom? Well we get candidates running for upper offices with no knowledge or experience of what holds the foundation together.

In fact we actually elect many people to these upper offices who run on the platform that they know nothing  and thus will bring a fresh new perspective to issues. Pick me … Vote for me …. I know nothing. And we elect them. Happens all the time. At every level of elections.

So big picture what do we see? We see that of those 493,830 local elected officials 325,928 of them ran unopposed … 325,928 of them better than nobody.

To me it is so simple to see. We desperately need to improve the quality of the pool of candidates at the bottom before we can expect to improve the quality of candidates at the top.

This is the path to overthrowing the kakistocracy. Start at the bottom of the pyramid and work up.

What can stop this plan? There is only one barrier to this plan being successful.

Apathy. Individual apathy. Leaving it up to someone else to do.

The only known cure for apathy is involvement

You gotta do it.

You gotta Overthrow the Kakistocracy. One by one by one.

So we agree that there is a kakistocracy at the federal level.  How about state and local government?

Across the country we have infrastructure crumbling and state budgets in ruins. I’m from Wisconsin. Need I say more. Nobody  on either side of the political aisle is happy. The political tension in Madison is the worst in memory. .. and whenever I think we have it bad in Wisconsin … I look at our neighbors to the south, Illinois … and realize we don’t have it so bad after all. Yes I can say with pride our kakistocracy is better than their kakistocracy. But a kakistocracy is still a kakistocracy.

Then there is the local level of government. My area of expertise. My evidence of kakistocracy at the local level is based on my personal experiences. I was there when each of the following happened.

A  newly elected Supervisor on the County Board  raised the idea of dropping the D.A.R.E. Program. He had read his son’s D.A.R.E. material and  believed the program lied to kids about certain drugs. He was adamant that he was not opposed to all drug education programs but believed they should look around for other alternatives.

The Chairman of Law Enforcement Committee stood to the floor, shook his finger and proclaimed …“Of course we lie to the kids. How else are we going to get through to them?”

Lying to kids … That is incompetence. .. That is a kakistocracy.

How about this…

The discussion was payment from the County to the Cities for library services provided to rural residents.  A long time Town Chairman and County Board Supervisor plead his case against the payment saying… “Nobody in my Town should have to pay for a Library, because nobody in my Town reads.”

An elected Representative that doesn’t read?

That is incompetence … That is a kakistocracy.

One more …

The discussion in the Zoning Committee was if the Zoning Administrator could attend the Zoning Administrator’s State Convention. I wondered why the issue was even being discussed until I heard… “We don’t want her going someplace … learning something new … and trying to bring it back here.”

God forbid someone learn something new …

That is incompetency. That is a Kakistocracy.

Still with me folks?  Have we entered a kakistocracy?

(Next. The scope of the problem.)

Does a kakistocracy exist? What evidence do I have that a kakistocracy exists? Because after all  if a kakistocracy doesn’t exist there is nothing that needs to be overthrown.Energy. Let’s start with energy. I remember the gas crisis of 1973-74. I had just started my first job out of college. President Richard Nixon was the first president to declare we should not be held hostage by foreign oil. Then Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Many times over the years those Presidents had friendly majorities in Congress when they could have tackled this problem … and yet still did nothing. After all these years we depend more on foreign oil now than we did back in 1973.Looks like incompetency to me. Looks like a kakistocracy.It’s been an ever so slowly movement over the past few decades but my generation, the Woodstock Generation. The Peace and Love Generation has produced a kakistocracy.

The tax code is over 70,000 pages long. Special favors and tax breaks abound. Fair? Of course not. Make it fair for all? Not a chance.Health Care? Then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said THEY had to pass the Health Care Bill  before WE could find out what was in it.Either party … I don’t care … if ANYONE says they have to pass a law before we can know what is in it, that is a kakistocracy.The approval ratings of Congress right now is 12%. If that isn’t a kakistocracy I don’t know what the definition of kakistocracy means. A form of government with the worst people in power.

TWELVE PERCENT APPROVAL RATING … AND THEY WILL BE RUNNING THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM!!!

My generation has ignored fixing Social Security … and Medicare.

In fact, we have developed no new program or idea that has been successful. We have failed to fix any program or idea that needs fixing  and driven a few old reliable programs into the ground. What a record.

I really feel bad that we ran the Post Office into obsolescence. Never gave it a chance to change with the times. Now we are threatening to close more offices across the country and strip those small communities of the last vestige of identity. It is shameless we have let this problem get this bad. That is a Kakistocracy.

The space program  disappeared somehow. Gone… Just gone. No more flights.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck … It is a duck.

If it acts like a kakistocracy, and talks like a kakistocracy … It is a kakistocracy.

Does anyone disagree with me?

Can anyone name one major issue or problem that has been “solved” over the past 30 years?

Or are we in agreement we have produced a kakistocracy at the national level of government?

When good people don’t go into politics, the bad people prevail.

I am  looking for some good people. Make no mistake about it.   I’m looking for some good people. The country is looking for good people. Desperately looking for good people.

Why is the country looking for good people?

The reason is because the U.S.A. has entered a period of kakistocracy. Our representative democracy has resulted in a situation where the worst people are in power.

Kakistocracy – A form of government where the worst people are in power.

I don’t mean “worst” as in evil or tormenting. I’m talking incompetency. I say that in the most non-partisan terms possible. Fine people. I personally like most all of them I have met, and I’ve met a ton of them over the course of my political career.

Individually fine people…Collectively incompetent…Collectively a Kakistocracy.

One of the icons of my generation Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead said back in the 60′s when the world was in turmoil … “Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.”

He had no idea how much of a prophet he was when he said that. It turns out that it was incredibly pathetic that it was us.

My generation has failed to solve every major problem we have faced. We have ducked and dodged our way out of  problems for years. We have pushed the hard decisions down the road for someone else to make.

Guess what. Time is up. “Someone else” needs to step forward and take the place of this present generation of elected officials. We need some good people.

We need to ignite the Kakistocracy Revolution!