The most important principle of leadership is convincing people that they can do what they believe they cannot. American history is full of such leaders. George Washington convinced his troops that they could win against virtually impossible military odds. Thomas Jefferson convinced people that a nation founded on liberty and individual rights was in the realm of the possible. James Madison convinced his fellow leaders that a Constitution grounded in limited government could stand the test of time. Lincoln convinced skeptics that the Union could be preserved, and that slavery could actually be abolished.

Today, it's different. We face challenges that, in their own way, are just as grave as those prior ones. As politicians and glorified bureaucrats tinker with our financial system, our government and our economic life are at stake. As Iran builds nuclear bombs and prepares to use them, Western civilization as we’ve known it is at stake. Many are in denial regarding the particulars, but I believe most people sense that we’re in a very bad place. Doomsday preppers are springing up across the country, and superstitious types focus on the coming economic collapse which will spell the end of the world as we know it.

The author of the following is unknown.

"Socialism is a philosophy of  failure,
the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of  envy,
its inherent virtue is the equal sharing  of misery.."
-- Winston Churchill
 
These are possibly the 5 best sentences  you'll ever read: Unfortunately, most voters don't know  this.

 1.  You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the  wealth out of  prosperity.

There's an old saying about the lack of wisdom involved in "biting the hand that feeds you." It refers to people who, with naiveté and arrogance, complain about the virtues of those they in fact need to flourish, or even survive. You might call it "the spoiled brat syndrome."

Economist George Reisman describes it beautifully, when writing about the sorts of people who participate in the "Occupy Wall Street" protests.

Michael Ignatieff, formerly of the Kennedy School of Government at (surprise, surprise) Harvard, writes, “[Thomas] Jefferson airily assumed that [American] democracy would be carried on the wings of enlightenment, reason and science. No one argues that now.”

Oh, really?

Where would American democracy and freedom be without enlightenment, reason and science? The American experiment grew out of the philosophical belief that man has a unique form of survival: The use of his mind, through reasoning, thinking and self-responsible effort. In order for mankind to survive and flourish, this capacity for reason has to be respected and kept free.