Shootout at the OK Corral
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1881. Tombstone. The most famous gunfight in American history — the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday facing down the Clanton-McLaury gang. It's legendary stuff, good guys defeating bad guys. The Wild West wasn't a place you'd want to raise a family. It had to be civilized by enforcing the law. Somebody had to strap on their shootin' irons and walk out into the dusty street.
The shootouts continue with our politicians, the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. Their penchant is for firing off lots of opinions with little data, hurling insults, or unable even to talk straight with Donny T now clocking in at over 43,000 lies. A lot of noise, a lot of shooting blanks, but nobody is hitting the targets. These folks seem skilled only at shooting themselves in the foot.
Effective decisions have boundaries and standards. Effective leaders learn the layout of the OK Corral, and stay within those limits. They're not willing to reduce the results they can get otherwise. Going outside these defined limits is not what effective leaders in high performance organizations do. Why waste the opportunity of getting something done? They focus on being the kind of gunslinger that hits meaningful targets.
Meanwhile the let's-pretend cowboys we elected get called out — John McCain's last notable challenge echoes: "We're getting nothing done, my friends. We're getting nothing done."
OK Boundaries
Legal. Principles evolved over centuries that provide guidance as to what won't land us in jeopardy. They provide an answer to two primary issues: What is Fair? What is Just? While the law often needs redefinition, consistently skirting the law or breaking it is a price that winners don't do. It keeps them functioning outside of concrete walls, and is cheaper than hiring attorneys. Taking the law into your own hands is an expression that fits losers. They don't break the law as much as they break themselves against it.
Values. This area is broad and often less defined. It incorporates one's own morality, religious affiliations, parental voices, and personal sense of what it means to "do the right thing." In many ways this is the most important boundary. It defines one's character, what one does when no one's looking. Our push for a better world is the author of all the other sides of the corral.
Budget. There's ain't no free lunch. Universal health care sounds good to most folks, but can we pay for it? It's easy to promise free bread and circuses, a chicken in every pot....you know the game. But what can we actually afford? The fencing is missing a few rails thanks to our politicos who just added
another $2T to our $40T national debt. Will your kids and grandchildren be able to survive the economic Armegeddon that many fear is on the way?
Policy. Institutions are charged with creating procedures and processes to systematically handle events and situations. No defined way of
behavior means chaos. When your surgeon is going to open you up on the table, do you want her to follow the steps that define the standard of care, or
should she just wing it? Medical malpractice, not following the gold standard of care. has its parallel in the continual political malpractice that gets
reported daily.
When politicians become out-laws, act without ethic, spend like there's no tomorrow, and ignore the accumulated wisdom of our institutions they cancel civilization and return us all to barbarity. Pay attention, because it's happening now, and it's not OK.
History gives balance to this picture. The winners we remember are either OK Defenders like Churchill and FDR, or OK Champions like King who pushed peaceably for redefinition. We need our representatives to keep their fights OK by staying within the corralled framework. Perhaps then their energies might get us something of value for the nation.
If you're ever down Tombstone way, go visit the old municipal graveyard. Lots to learn from the epitaphs there that foreshadow the political futures of those who can't figure out how to fight fair.
Here lies Lester Moore
Four slugs from a 44
No Les
No More
