Some Politics

2023 Update: My entry into politics was intended to be the practical application of my vision. I absolutely believed that people need to be treated with dignity at the individual level. Regardless of viewpoint or background, we all need to be treated as if we matter. But, since 2020, we have seen, at the national level, entire focused campaigns waged from the top down, using major institutions to restrict people from asking legitimate questions and pointing out corruption in high places. 

It's interesting how such laudable goals as giving everybody individual person a seat at the table is treated with such contempt. But that's how I was treated when reporting Anderson's irregularities (by the University of Michigan Regents and bureaucracy). That's how all of Nortel treated me (including the people I most trusted). That's how Michigan States University's Nassar whistleblowers were treated until it became politically incorrect to ignore them.

But in different contexts, different generations, different places, the same happens still, today. It would be nice to get political support for such reforms.

Try running for office, in 2023, on a platform like the one I ran on in 2002. 

I wanted to be an elected official between the years 1995 and 2010. I would serve no more than two total terms, consecutively, in the same office. If I lost an election, I would not continue until winning in a lower election. I won a seat on the Dexter (Michigan) Village Council in 1998. And then I won a seat on the Scio Township Board in 2000. In 2002, I failed in a run for the Michigan State Senate, and then in 2004 our entire board was swept out in a wave that permanently turned Scio Township Democrat. In 2008, I made one more try in Scio, but this time for Treasurer. I lost, and dropped out of elected politics for good. 

These are the principles that guided me throughout these political years:

  • Elected officials should actively listen to their constituents - all of them - regardless of party. Modern technology had made it possible, easily, to gauge the wishes of the citizens. Regardless of their personal views . . . elected officials should strive to represent the attitudes and goals of the voters. 
  • In much the same way that employers are required to accommodate employees that are members of the military reserves, or volunteer fire departments, they should also be required to accommodate employees that are part-time elected officials. Our system cannot work when the only people that can afford to run for local office are stay-at-home spouses, retirees, college students, professionals, and Independently wealthy people and business owners. 
  • Citizens should be informed of their rights to review laws passed, especially at the local level. And the right to review laws and overturn them, by the people, should not be limited to the local and state level. We need that at the national level. 
I held forth the individual as absolutely supreme. I wanted to give every single one of my constituents, a voice in their government, even if I disagreed with them. I have heard people saying "I vote for the person that is most like me" but consider that view to be rubbish. I want the candidate that is most like us. I am not perfect. I need those other views to offset where I may be wrong. And it is a certainty that I am wrong about some things. 

I became more vocal about my desire to see the jobs of employees protected, when and if they ascend to part-time local elected office. I cannot understand why an employer would not be surpassingly supportive of their employees gaining positions of influence in the community . . . 

Well, actually, one of the two national parties does make a valiant effort at encouraging local political involvements. But that's not enough. Our local boards, faculty in our public institutions like schools, our political professionals - - - these all must look like a cross-section of society, where even all viewpoints are given a fair opportunity to contribute. 

I job-hopped between 1997 and 2003 - the years that I was in politics - and this was because not a single one of them cared that I was an elected official. In fact, they tended to ridicule it. They marginalized it. They punished me for it. No wonder more people don't get involved.

I learned that the citizens of the State of Michigan have the right to overturn local laws and ordinances passed by their government. But, other elected officials acted like they wished it were not in the law. They wished that I would not talk about it so much. 

We don't need people like that in government. But they're the ones we're stuck with. At all levels. 

In my Senate run, my slogan was "Dare to Change. DARR to Change."

I did represent change. Very few politicians talk about empowering real people, all people . . . really empowering them and giving them a voice. I passionately believe that this is the way to create excellent solutions to problems. We need each other. We need the different viewpoints of others. 

But at a home football game at Ypsilanti High School, in October of 2002, I stood near the ticket gate to meet community members of both schools. A dozen supporters were with me, all wearing my DARR to Change tee-shirts. I truly enjoyed meeting all of these wonderful people from across the county. I imagined every single one of them having equal access to their government. I wanted the input of everybody, in our innovative, ground-breaking problem-solving model. 

A woman walked past me. She did not even make eye contact and asserted: "I do not choose to change."

In the election, two-thirds of the voters agreed with her. My platform of utter empowerment of the individual was rejected, in favor of the cynical, partisan, angry, bitter method of politics that is all we've even known. 

Little did I know how chilling a portend this was, for the next generation. The dignity and empowerment of the individual was out. Groupthink and mob intimidation was in. 

And the desire of a regular, average guy to put himself out there and gain access to decisions that affect all of us was little more than a silly affectation, at least in the eyes of three employers. 

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