Washington desperately needs lazy leaders

I figured out the problem with our government. Everyone works too hard.

How do I know this? 

Well, everyone in government says so. Incessantly. In every campaign brochure. In every mailing. In every ad. In every speech. Every single candidate for every single elected office, without exception, has declared how hard he works. 

It is natural to conclude from all these declarations that our government is exclusively populated by hard workers – which brings me to my question. 

With all this hard work, shouldn’t we have seen a solution or two by now? Even just a tiny one?

Alas, despite all this hard work, our Johnny still can’t read. Plus other Johnnies  still steal, abuse drugs, pollute, give and take bribes, cheat, wage war,  get sick, smoke cigarettes, eat junk food, watch sit-coms, and root for the Yankees. 

When a  government that can’t solve problems, it becomes a problem. To fix things, we need to elect lazy leaders.

Let’s face it. The only reason someone works hard is because he hasn’t found an easier way. When a politician says he is working hard, he is basically admitting that he isn’t intelligent enough or creative enough to find a better, faster, cheaper way of accomplishing the same thing. 

I have noticed that hard workers fall into two distinct categories – smart one and dumb one.

The smart, hard working politician diligently attends to myriads of details. Unfortunately, details have a nasty habit of proliferating. This type of politician gets trapped by those details and never gets time to see the bigger picture. He tends to micromanage and, the truth be told, is better suited to be a middle manager. 

On the other hand, the hard-worker with low wattage grey matter is horribly dangerous because his tireless hard work is constantly gnerating  mistakes. Politicians of this sort energetically lead their nations into war, debt, and increased pollution. They alienate allies, unnecessarily inflame enemies, ignore past treaties, arrogantly make a mess of things, and tell their constituencies how afraid everyone should be.  Of course, through all this, they justify the virtuousness of their activity by telling everyone how hard they are working.

What we really need is lazy leaders. 

Lazy politicians, like their hard working counterparts, also come in two intellectual flavors – bright and dim.

He who is both lazy and stupid will do very little. If you think about it, this could be an enormous blessing to a society. Even though nothing would get done, he would be a welcome relief from the current crop of hot-air-spewing, hand-waving, wheel-spinning, money-spending, nowhere-going, elected officials. With a do-nothing dullard, life would be less noisy and a whole lot less expensive. 

The lazy politicain who is also smart is our hero. He or she makes the ideal leader. Too lazy to attend to details, he is always free to see the big picture. With an alert mind yet lazy inclination, he is partial to finding easier ways of accomplishing things. He then delegates those ways to eager beavers so that he doesn’t have to do the work himself.

Smart politicians, dedicated to avoiding hard work, are just what this country needs. Although rare, there are some notable examples in history. 

King David comes to mind. As a youth, he didn’t do a lick of work in defeating Goliath. He merely flicked his wrist. 

Let us imagine if David were a hard worker. He then would have enthusiastically plunged into the hard work of fighting Goliath hand-to-hand. Needless to say, that hard work would have been fatal.

When David got older, he became king of Israel. He united the nation, extended its lands, triumphed over its enemies, and began a prosperous Golden Age.

But that is not all. King David’s smart-laziness must have been unbelievably efficient because he still had plenty of time left over to write the Book of Psalms – a fairly significant contribution to world literature.

So the next time a politician tells you what a hard worker he is, think about King David and vote for the lazier candidate. The odds of electing an effective, less costly leader would then be vastly improved.

www.lazyway.net

Comments

[Harold Balsak]

Yeah, lazy leaders would be great in a time when we have lazy terrorists. But that isn't the case.

Evil still lurks whether you work hard or not.

[Fred Gratzon]

Hard work doesn't seem to be generating any solutions. With all the hard work being done trying to defeat it, terrorism is only getting worse. On the other hand, like I said, David lazily defeated Goliath and then after David became king of Israel, he defeated all his enemies plus had time left over to write the Pslams. What this country needs is someone who sees a bigger/deeper picture. What we have now leading our country is a walking, talking disaster.

[Harold Balsak]

Obviously this subject is a matter of opinions, facts, perception, interpretations and even a little definition wrangling. Hence, reasons why some can only agree to disagree.

However, with that being said, how did David defeat his enemies? By waging war against them! And war is hard work. Maybe once Bush leaves office he'll have time to write "My Life".

There is such a hatred of the leadership of this country from the opposition that they cannot even see what he's accomplished.

So would your solution be to ignore the terrorists until they strike?

I know you've mentioned in the past about TM, but i don't think you'll be able to publish the Quaran with TM in it.

[Harold]

And If terrorism is getting worse, is it the result of hard work on their part? We aren't going to lazily defeat terrorism.

[Avi Solomon]

Bush does take regular vacations at his ranch, especially during wartime:)
http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/presvacation/index.html