Service, Personified

What Politics Is Supposed to Be About

- by Kevin Necessary

Politics is supposed to be about public service.

And true service can be performed far beyond politics and public office.

Jimmy Carter showed us both.

When he won the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2002, Carter shared lessons he learned from a teacher back in Georgia:

“I thought often during my years in the White House of an admonition that we received in our small school in Plains, Georgia, from a beloved teacher, Miss Julia Coleman. She often said: ‘We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.’

When I was a young boy, this same teacher also introduced me to Leo Tolstoy’s novel, “War and Peace.” She interpreted that powerful narrative as a reminder that the simple human attributes of goodness and truth can overcome great power. She also taught us that an individual is not swept along on a tide of inevitability but can influence even the greatest human events.

These premises have been proven by the lives of many heroes, some of whose names were little known outside their own regions until they became Nobel laureates….All of these and others have proven that even without government power – and often in opposition to it – individuals can enhance human rights and wage peace, actively and effectively….

At the beginning of this new millennium I was asked to discuss, here in Oslo, the greatest challenge that the world faces. Among all the possible choices, I decided that the most serious and universal problem is the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people on earth. Citizens of the ten wealthiest countries are now seventy-five times richer than those who live in the ten poorest ones, and the separation is increasing every year, not only between nations but also within them. The results of this disparity are root causes of most of the world’s unresolved problems, including starvation, illiteracy, environmental degradation, violent conflict, and unnecessary illnesses that range from Guinea worm to HIV/AIDS…

The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. God gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes – and we must.“

Day 30 — December 30, 2024

(for new followers, I provide a short daily tracker of notable events in the Trump era)

Trying to avert another chaotic food fight, Trump endorsed Mike Johnson in his bid to be House Speaker again. Elon Musk also endorsed Johnson shortly after Trump’s statement, but then muddied the waters by amplifying a tweet casting doubt on Johnson’s chances by a Johnson opponent.

In an effort to regain control of the narrative and end the public infighting, Trump’s incoming Chief of Staff sent a memo to Cabinet and administration nominees that they should refrain from social media posts without prior approval from Trump’s future White House counsel. Apparently this order had been made previously and violated.

This order presumably does not apply to either Elon Musk or Vivek Ramaswamy, whose “nominations” to run the bizarre and undefined “DOGE” do not require Congressional approval. But of course, it’s their tweets that set off the MAGA civil war in the first place.

And now, onto Kevin’s Commentary: