Leave Us the Hell Alone

A new technique that might help

In this post the secret everyone, everywhere has been waiting for. This is the big one. Way better than clickbait. It’s the super, secret solution to being a good politician! Damn! I bet the title gave it away!

The significant point is that people unfit for freedom—who cannot do much with it—are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a “have” type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities.¹

—Eric Hoffer, Working and Thinking on the Waterfront

In my brief career as a high school football coach I attended a large coaching conference in the early 80’s.  Bill Walsh, former head coach of the San Francisco 49er’s, spoke along with a number of college coaches.  In one seminar an old collegiate coach, whose name I cannot remember, was asked, “How do you coach kickers?”  I will never forget his answer:

“Well, if he’s a good kicker,” he said, “I usually walk over to him during practice and ask how his girlfriend is or how his grades are or how his mom and dad are doing.  I do not give him any advice on how to kick.  Maybe, if I’m feeling adventurous, I’ll pick up some grass, throw it in the air and comment on the direction of the wind.  But basically, I just try not to upset him.”

I’m going to let you in on the secret of being a good director.  For the script you get . . . Peter Stone . . . or Frederic Raphael . . . If it’s a musical, for the songs you get George and Ira Gershwin or Arthur Freed . . . or Leonard Bernstein . . . Then you cast Cary Grant or Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Sophia Loren, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Gregory Peck, Elizabeth Taylor, Burt Reynolds, Gene Hackman, or Frank Sinatra . . .  And when filming starts you show up and you stay the hell out of the way.²

This should be the motto for all politicians:

Stay the hell out of the way! 

If you run a big country…say, just as an example, the United States of America, a country that has been doing well economically, that, for the most part has good and decent citizens, citizens who show up to work, do their jobs, are good husbands and wives, responsible parents, law abiding and occasionally tell some exceptional jokes—leave them the hell alone.

See the forest—it’s there, it’s large and it’s begging for attention.  Some citizens are lazy, irresponsible and incompetent.  Fine. Deal with them.  It’s an ugly job, but that’s what politicians signed up for the day they won their elections.  Stop wasting time harassing good citizens.  Enjoy them.  Thank God for them and if you don’t believe in God, just pretend—sometimes that works just as well.

Don’t make good citizens conform to the thousands of laws on the books, laws which technically make every man, woman, child and their pets enemies of the state.  Let them do things their own way.  Your job is to keep your good citizens happy.  Your job is to make sure they stay in the forest and don’t hop on the first logging truck that runs by because they’re pissed off about being fined for carving their initials in a tree or building a wooden birdhouse without a permit.

As a way of contributing to the needs of our country and every other country in the world, I suggest the following:

Training for politicians should consist of one week of the continued repetition of this one phrase:

I will leave you the hell alone.

It could become the Politician’s Mantra (PM).  It could be posted above their desks, in rest rooms, in break rooms, on the dashboards of their cars and even at home on their refrigerators and bathroom mirrors. They could make badges for their Facebook and X pages.

In addition, a meaningful ritual, a new tradition, should be implemented called, Government Responsive Readings (GRR). These could be printed up in books so that new citizens and new politicians could join in immediately.  Instead of the usual, unspoken dialogue that goes something like this:

Politicians:  Good morning.  We’re rolling out some new laws this week.
Citizens:  Not this bullshit again.
Politicians:  We’re really just like you and we understand your needs.
Citizens: The hell you do.
Politicians: These new laws are going to benefit everyone.
Citizens: Let’s go get pizza.

We could have a GRR that might go something like this (we could do it on Zoom!):

Politicians: Good morning, Citizens.  Forgive us for getting in the way yesterday.
Citizens:  Incompetent, useful idiots, don’t let it happen again!
Politicians: Today we will stay the hell out of the way.
Citizens: Glory in the highest, leave us the hell alone.
Politicians: May tomorrow also keep us the hell out of your way
Citizens: Praise be to you, leave us the hell alone tomorrow too.
Politicians: Amen!
Citizens: Hallelujah!

This kind of interaction, though rote, might be the most significant dialogue ever engaged in between politicians and citizens and so completely alter the current state of the political landscape that consulting firms nationwide will begin filing bankruptcy.

Good citizens will start smiling again, not that cynical, dry, sarcastic smile that politicians are now accustomed to thanks to the last four years, but rather that genuine smile of good will and good humor.

So, for God’s sake, leave us the hell alone.

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Notes

1. Enlarge Image Hoffer, Eric, Working and Thinking on the Waterfront,  Perennial Library, Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1970, p. 146
2. Donen, Stanley, Acceptance Speech at the Academy Awards, "The 70th Annual Academy Awards," on ABC, Produced by Gilbert Cates, Directed by Louis J. Horvitz, March 23, 1998.