By Randy Rossi -
Our corporate psychologist and head of Human Resources who taught us how to identify, hire, and motivate the best employees always warned us that 80% of people are “sheep” and shouldn’t be hired. He told us we must look for and hire “sheep dogs” that protect the sheep and deal with facts and data. What does that mean? It means that a majority of people will “follow the herd over the cliff” because they care more about being “liked” by the herd than doing what is best for themselves, their family, their company, and their country. It means that they cannot think strategically, they run from conflict instead of solving it, and they don’t dare to challenge what the “herd” believes even if hard facts prove them wrong. Facts don’t matter to them. And to make it worse today, the “Fake News”, social media, and our tragic “Cancel Culture” are scaring even more Americans to be sheep who don’t dare stand up for the truth anymore because of the fear of being “unliked” and cancelled by the herd.
Sadly, only a small minority of people are “sheep dogs” that protect the “sheep” and have the courage to stand by and defend the facts, our country, their kid’s futures, and what is right no matter what the “herd” thinks. Those “sheep dogs” are the people we were trained to identify and hire. And our psychologist was right because those great “sheep dogs” that we hired helped make our company incredibly successful and they delivered outstanding results to our customers, employees, and shareholders.
While I understood how destructive “sheep” could be and how prevalent they were in the business world, I didn’t appreciate how dominant they are in everyday life until I retired and was elected as a precinct committeeman to represent my community. I live in a nice community and I assumed that all my neighbors were responsible citizens that did their duty to keep up with the “real” news and they always voted responsibly for the sake of their kids, their town, and their country. When I went house to house to talk to them in the elections, I was stunned to see that roughly 80% of them were exactly the same “sheep” that our psychologist warned us about. That was many years ago and things have gotten much worse as I watch so many people in this once great country follow the herd over the socialist cliff. Having worked in socialist and communist countries, I have seen the horror of following the herd over the cliff just like the people of China and Venezuela have done. Over 20 years I watched my 2nd favorite country Italy go from the second most prosperous manufacturing country in Europe to essentially becoming bankrupt and dependent on tourism and agriculture because manufacturing fled Italy because socialism made it impossible to survive in Italy. The Italians followed the herd over the socialist cliff!
What has happened to America? When America was first founded by our Founding Fathers, America was a nation in which 80% of the people were “Sheep Dogs” who risked their lives and everything they had for freedom. Most of them came to America in order to have freedom of religion because many countries in Europe forced people to follow the religion that their government demanded. Then our Founding Fathers risked everything again by declaring their independence from the most powerful nation on Earth which was Britain because Britain did not respect their freedom and imposed unfair taxes and rules on them. And despite all odds, they won! What happened to us since then? How did we go from “sheep dogs” to “sheep”?
Sadly, John Adams who read thousands of books on the history of democracy so he could write the constitution of Massachusetts summarized it best when he said “There hasn’t been a democracy yet that hasn’t committed suicide”. Why does that happen? Because as Edward Gibbons the author of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” summarized, Rome fell because of the “Insidious poison of free bread and circuses” in which the people were willing to give up their freedom for free stuff from the government. As Alexander Tytler said over 200 years ago after studying over 2,000 years of democracy; democracy always leads to prosperity, which leads to decadence, which leads to dependence on their government, which leads to bondage through dictatorship. Thomas Jefferson also summarized this tragedy when he said “Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those that are willing to work and give to those that are not”. Like having the government pay Americans more not to work than they can make by working during the Covid crisis!
Finally Alex de Tocqueville, a famous French historian, politician, and philosopher came to America to see the new shining example of democracy after just a few decades of being an independent republic. While he loved America, he issued this warning: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose policy always followed by dictatorship”. Just like sheep follow the herd to slaughter!
We still have time to fix this mess and save our kid’s futures, but the clock is ticking and China is watching! We have to get back to “The land of the free because of the brave”. The brave “sheep dogs” have to step up and save this great republic!
