Re: Open Questions to the President
I think it was T. Roosevelt that said" A quick way to find ones
character, is to give them a position of power"
Ray
halinar@open.org wrote:
> Butch:
>
> >It is not the person it is the power, take away the power and the
> >offices must respond to democratic rule. Your enemy is power not the
> >person, power has always been abused.
>
> I couldn't agree more with you that the problem is the power and not
> necessarily the person. However, you have to understand that there
> are at least two major personality types that have a problem with
> power. The first is the person who seeks out power because they are
> attracted to power and it is the power that interests them. These are
> the really dangerous types who often times won't stop at anything.
> They often don't have a very high moral and ethics value system. The
> second is the person who is put into a position of power who then
> gradually becomes abusive.
>
> The big shot who got me kicked off the daylily robin is clearly of the
> first type. He had absolutely no hesitation to abuse his position
> because he had the power and he had the person grudge against me.
> This is a real hideous abuse of power. On the other hand we have a
> robin Big Brother who really isn't a bad person, but he was put into a
> position of power and then he became abusive of that power. When you
> look at particular problems associated with abuse of power you have to
> figure out where the particular person fits in. In the first case
> where the person is abusive because they like/want the power, the only
> thing you can do is remove that person from the position of power.
> With the person who is basically nice, but lets the power take control
> of them, you can sometimes reason with them to get them to understand
> the problem.
>
> The problems with the hosta society are basically misconceived policy
> decisions followed by poor communication and then a reluctance to
> admit to having made an error. In the daylily society, on the other
> hand, the problem is gross unethical abuse of power of a personal
> nature by a board member and the past president and criminal behavior
> on part of the entire board to engage in a cover up of that abuse of
> power and a cover up of the criminal behavior.
>
> I think the problems in the hosta society will clear up becasue there
> are enough people who want it cleaned up and the current president and
> his supporters won't be in office forever. This is assuming that the
> hosta society doesn't fall apart before that happens. Policy can
> always be changed. Unfortunately, you can't change the fact that
> board members may have engaged in highly unethical behavior for their
> own personal gain, nor can you change the fact that criminal acts took
> place. The next president of the hosta society can just toss the
> misguidded policy into the trash can. I don't know what the next
> daylily society president is going to do. So far all I know is that
> she is young and good looking, which means that she probably doesn't
> have much experience with dealing with the evil side of power. I
> seriously doubt that she has what it takes to stand up to Mr. Big Wig.
> If she goes along with the cover up then she becomes part of the
> problem and she then lowers her own ethical and moral values to
> justify not doing anything. Some peoplem can live with that. But
> then, if she isn't willing to take the steps to clean house the day
> she first takes office, then Mr. Big Wig and the others who are
> abusing their board positions will end up controling her and she will
> end up doing what they want, not what should be done to solve the many
> problems that exists within the society.
>
> Joe Halinar
>
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