Action is not leadership; solutions are leadership.

We often see leaders as people who take action, and that is certainly part of leadership. But, action in and of itself is not leadership.

Anyone can take action at any time. People often act out of a need to do something, anything. This is just reflexive action, something done without much thought. Reflexive action is done out of frustration. It is done without a solution behind it.

Here, I am struck that this has been a large part of Donald Trump’s approach to how he manages. To be clear here, I do not like Trump, his policies or his approach to running the government or leading this country. However, with that said, as someone who does focus on leadership, I can step away from my feelings and focus on the leadership elements at play here.

In a real crisis or emergency, we all act reflexively, sometimes doing the very first thing that comes into our head, perhaps even the very thing we should not do.

In the case of Donald Trump, people have always acknowledged that he can act impulsively, even impetuously. He responds with his gut feeling. But, that is not leadership. The president has to be the leader 24/7. He cannot be the nation’s id.

There are two situations that highlight how these reflexive actions by Donald Trump shows the lack of a solution behind them. The first was his decision of end the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program. The second was the recent Zero Tolerance policy which erupted into bad optics about crying children being held away from their families. I don’t want to focus on the politics of the two situations, but on the process. In both cases, Trump took the action and then tossed the issue over to Congress to solve. He presented no solution beforehand, no outline of what would be acceptable to him as a solution.

On DACA, there was great confusion on what he would accept. On one day, he said one thing, which he later reversed. He created a problem, using the DACA children as a bargaining chip, to force Congress to come up with a solution he could accept. A year later, there is still no solution to the DACA dilemma. Trump offered no solution. He waited for Congress to come offering solutions in the form of proposed laws. Nothing substantial came of it.

On the Zero Tolerance policy, he did something similar. He ordered Attorney General Jeff Sessions to implement the Zero Tolerance policy. By doing so, he wanted to put pressure on Congress come up with a solution to the immigration problem. As of today, there is no solution on the horizon. The proposed legislation, according to all sides, has no chance to pass Congress. And, the Trump White House has offered no detailed legislation or even an outline of what would be acceptable.

Those who support Trump applaud that he takes decisive action. Yes, both were decisive actions. You can see it in many of the things he has done. He ended the administration’s support for health care subsidies. He pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accords, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the UN Human Rights Council. In the case of the TPP, no other agreement was presented in its place that would keep the United States plugged into trade with the Pacific nations. Perhaps he is still waiting for those countries to come back with a trade deal, but nothing has really happened so far on that. In the meantime, China has take advantage of the vacuum.

As a leadership example, however, they are empty action. None of those came with solutions attached to them. Perhaps it is part of Trump’s history of how he operates where he takes an action and then waits for someone to solve the problem he creates or for the other party to come up with an acceptable solution. He just transferred that behavior to the Presidency.

While we want and expect action from our leaders, we really need solutions. That is the hard part of leadership, crafting a solution. But, it is a necessary element of leadership.

I learned, from my wife, one principal’s approach to addressing problems. Her principal told her, “I don’t mind you bringing me problems, but I expect you to come with a solution for me to consider. Don’t just being me problems.”

Anyone can take action and create other problems in the process. No real thought is required. But solutions demand hard thought and work. Still, that is what we really need from our leaders.

I have a question for Gov. Abbott

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Yes, I have a question for Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton. How far would you go to protect my right of religious liberty in the face of a law that goes against my religious views?

Like many other conservative leaders, all three have been vocal in arguing that both elected officials and regular citizens should not be forced to do something that is against their religion. They came out forcefully with respect to individuals’ rights to not be forced to provide services to gay weddings (a cake baker, for example) or an elected official’s right to not be forced to approve marriage licenses (county clerks) or perform a wedding ceremony (justice of the peace) for a gay couple. This is part of Abbott’s reasoning for his position, “The Texas Constitution guarantees that ‘[n]o human authority ought, in any case whatsoever, to control or interfere with the rights of conscience in matters of religion.” Paxton, speaking about the U. S. Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, said, “This ruling will likely only embolden those who seek to punish people who take personal, moral stands based upon their conscience and the teachings of their religion.”

The Texas Senate approved a bill allowing county clerks to recuse themselves from signing marriage licenses for same-sex couples because of religious objections. Again, this was based on the idea that elected officials should not be forced to follow a law that goes against their religious beliefs.

The Texas legislature is now debating a new law that extends that idea of religious liberty. Called the “Freedom to Serve Children Act,” Texas’ House Bill 3859 extends religious liberty protections to providers within Texas’ child welfare system, allowing them to decline services to individuals based on “the provider’s sincerely held religious beliefs.” Child welfare providers can also require children under their care to receive a religious education, including putting them in religious schools, even if it is different from the child’s home religious upbringing.

As I have said before, I take people’s convictions at face value. I don’t question them. So, I trust that Abbott, Patrick and Paxton truly believe that the government should not force us to go against our own personal religious beliefs, regardless of the consequences and potential abuses of that position, for individuals and elected officials.

Abbott recently signed Senate Bill 4, which makes sheriffs, constables, police chiefs and other local leaders subject to Class A misdemeanor charges if they don’t cooperate with federal authorities and honor requests from immigration agents to hold noncitizen inmates who are subject to deportation. It also provides civil penalties for entities in violation of the provision that begin at $1,000 for a first offense and climb to as high as $25,500 for each subsequent infraction. The bill also applies to public colleges.

So, here’s my question to Abbott, Patrick and Paxton. If my religious beliefs tell me that I should not follow the mandates of Senate Bill 4, the so called “sanctuary cities” law, would they defend my religious rights? If I am a Sheriff or Police Chief and felt that my reading of the Gospel directed me to welcome the foreigner, regardless of legal status, do I then have a right to refuse to follow SB 4? Will Gov. Abbott and Attorney General Paxton go to court to defend me? After all, as Jesus said, “I was a stranger and you took me.” If I interpret that to mean that I should not throw out the immigrants, is that not part of my religious liberty?

Do my rights of religious liberty extend to this issue or just to gay marriage, and only if I am against gay marriage?

I would believe that think that if you defend one person’s right to religious liberty on one issue, you would have to defend all people’s rights on all issues because you are arguing the principle not the issue. Right? They are arguing for their positions based on constitutional rights.

If Gov. Abbot, Lt. Gov. Patrick or A. G. Paxton aren’t willing to answer my question, can you?

The Border Is NOT The Problem

It has become a ritual among some politicians to come to the U.S.-Mexico border to do a two-hour tour and then claim to be an expert on border security and immigration. By that standard, I could visit the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland and then claim that I’m a nuclear scientist. Yes, both ideas are equally stupid.

The latest was U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. After a tour in El Paso, Sessions declared the border “a ‘ground zero’ of death and violence” and “war zones.”

Well, Mr. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the border is not the problem. The problem is Alabama, your home state, and the rest of the states. These are the states that are gobbling up meth, heroin, cocaine, and marijuana like there’s no tomorrow. Alabama and the other states are the ones that are desperately searching for and hiring illegal immigrants to work in their meat packing plants, hospitals, nursing homes, construction projects, and even their homes. These are also the states where young immigrant girls and boys are trafficked for sexual purposes.

So far, this country has been using a one-tool approach to this problem: build the wall, secure the border while laughingly ignoring what is drawing drugs and illegal immigrants to this country.

This country is like a patient diagnosed with diabetes. Diabetes patients absolutely have to do two things: take their medications and change their lifestyle. The medication is easy. They go to the doctor and take the prescription to the pharmacy. That’s the end of it. The part about changing their lifestyle gets lip service in the doctor’s office and then promptly ignored.

The lifestyle change has to include changing their diet and doing active exercise. This the hard part, the part people really don’t want to do. They want to do the easy thing, take the pills. When they go back to the doctor, they’re shocked that they’ve actually gotten worse. So, the doctor has to up the dosages and even add more medications. It keeps spiraling until no new medications work, and they have to be hospitalized and put on insulin injections.

That’s the U.S. Our government wants to do the expensive but easy thing: spend money on law enforcement and build walls while ignoring the root of the problem. The government is just now starting to realize that it has a serious opioid addiction problem, but that only came to the surface because it started to impact the suburbs and upper income neighborhoods. The problem has been festering in poor and minority communities for decades, but that wasn’t considered serious. One has to wonder why it wasn’t considered a serious problem before now. However, it still hasn’t done anything significant to address the addiction issue. There have been some sob stories highlighted and some small programs started in a few communities. That’s it. Nothing significant.

The government is also willingly ignoring all the companies and individuals who are hiring illegal immigrants. Until they are willing to actually punish these employers and individuals, immigrants will keep coming. Until U.S. companies, big and small, and individuals actually see serious consequences, they will keep hiring them.

But, that is just the hypocrisy of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, our top law enforcement officer, and all the others who are not willing to punish those people who violating U.S. laws by hiring illegal immigrants. It’s easier, politically, to punish the immigrant and pretend they can’t see who hired them.

No, Mr. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the border is not the problem. It’s Alabama and the rest of the country that are the root of the problem.