No Matter What It Costs

This election year is unlike any other for me. Over the last 2 years, we have learned so much about our world, and in particular, our country.

The covid chaos has taught us how much our government has deceive us.

The 2020 election opened our eyes to election fraud and the great lengths people will go to win.

“There are people willing to stand up for other people no matter what it costs them.”

Johnny – Dirty Dancing

But the biggest thing for me has been seeing how many people have their heads in the sand. And I’ve been one of them for far too long.

There are so many individuals in local office (both elected and appointed), that have gotten there by taking advantage of the system and of the people. They do not have Tehama County citizens best interest at heart.

I never cared before. I just trusted the people running our county were doing the right thing.

But now I can’t unsee what I’ve seen. I can’t I hear what I’ve heard.

So this election, I am much more alert to the people running running for office. I want to know how they’ve conducted themselves in their own lives and in their work.

Some of our candidates have not been known to act with integrity. And yet at the first sign of public information that shows that, people jump in to defend that person.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —

~from the Declaration Independence

Integrity is important. We have to be willing to get out of our comfort zones and have more detailed discussions about difficult issues. We have to be willing to identify weaknesses in our candidates.

That doesn’t mean we have to condemn them for those weaknesses. But we should expect them to overcome them. We should expect them to learn from their past mistakes and do better in the future.

We are all complaining about the people in office across the country and in our county who are doing bad things. But guess what folks – WE PUT THEM THERE!

It is OUR responsibility as voters to put the right people in office – not the one with the most experience, not the better public speaker, not the more popular person. We have to find the ones who will do what’s right and represent the individuals they govern, even when it’s hard, even when it goes against their own personal interests.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

~from the Declaration Independence

Listen to what people say – even if it’s hard to hear.

If you know that a candidate has a history of wrong-doing – reach out to me confidentially. Let’s find a way to get that information on the table.

How that person responds will tell us whether he or she is truly acting with integrity.

I want to encourage you to read the Declaration of Independence excerpt below. Our founding fathers understood that people become accustomed to suffering and that we would be more willing to suffer wrongdoings than to fight to correct them.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

~from the Declaration Independence

It’s time for change friends. We don’t necessarily need to establish a new government – we just need to get the right people into office and then hold them accountable to the oath they take.

It starts with us. It ends with us.