Leadership vs. Celebrity (Part 1)

Family policy matters in engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina family policy Council hi this is John Ralston, presidency, family, and were grateful to have you with us for this week's program is our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on family policy matters and that you will fold better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state and nation, and now here's our house to family policy matters Tracy to bedrooms. Thanks for joining us this week for family policy matters. Pres. Ronald Reagan famously sad. Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. With this sobering reality is one reason why the work of generation Joshua is so important as the folks there assist parents in raising up the next generation of Christian leaders and citizens equipping those young people to influence the political processes of today and tomorrow. Joe likes to say they teach through the doing and doing. They did here in North Carolina and the months of running up to the elections. 325 young people made 977,000. That's nearly a million voter education contacts across our state in October and November, Joel Grilli. Welcome to family policy matters is a pleasure to be here. By telling us in your experience, how much are the youth of America interested knowledgeable in better yet, involved in politics?

What is actually different on different pieces of the interest of American youth in politics is actually rather high higher than its historically been that has worked its way into the high school aspect of governmental people are very much tracking what's going on what I find fascinating is that although the interest is growing. The knowledge of what we find people that are more interested and less knowledgeable today about our American political system. I met a farce engagement depend on how you count. If you're looking at engagement as how often you protest or change the cover of your instrument Facebook profile. That's pretty high. If you're looking at how much they actually know how to engage the system in a conductive way that unfortunately Waterloo what do you blame this lack of knowledge on well in part it's because we stopped bothering to teach students about our civic process and partly that is because we don't agree on what the processes as a nation we don't like the process and when we explain the process of a certain point, and raises the question and says why is that the process and frankly even our teachers don't know, it's funny how often I'm working with people. The teach government and civics because we the national nonprofit we teach that around the country, but we work with other people who do as well. Often we find people, particularly in the public education fear who don't actually know why our government works the way it does. The terrifying thing is that they're the ones charged with teaching our kids how it works and how they're involved, and if they don't understand it. It's unlikely anyone there going to teach us when understand it and that's a real tragedy for our country.

Much of the blame if any goes to social media and the way that kids engage what seems like a very surface level, especially insight, Instagram, which is all about that quick quote hit and share blame their I think the problem with that is that is more of an echo chamber of bad content, Instagram, and any other social media platform essentially just replicates things you got from somewhere else. It doesn't normally originate content, but the end result is that bad content is a lot louder than it was because it travels a lot for what the quote about truth and lies alike and travel around the world for truth put shoes on or something like that. There's an aspect of that word.

This information or misinformation rapidly moves and it's hard to correct it when he gets out there. It truly is.

And frankly, that's one of the perpetual weaknesses of social media. It sounds good. It's instinctually something I want to hear great all of a sudden it's outdoor moving and we never even got a chance to say, but it's not right about that. She wanted one of the recurrent challenges that and people want something to be true, and as a result of that often the assume it's true because it sounds good but it rarely is.

Right now that young people actually this applies to people of all age is does and I were all guilty of this and one of the things about Instagram is I think it, or any of the social media platforms is that that it gives especially young people a sense that they've done something right like they are involved and it is reinforced by making a difference whether they are the really hard part becomes as result of that is when they think they made a difference and they didn't or are making a difference to try to do a good thing, but the result of your action is actually doing finger trying to stop that I find particularly troublesome is how often you will have good intent paired with really bad policy, but not enough critical reasoning skills of the person advocating it to realize they are actually bringing about the finger trying to stop that happens.

Fortunately for our friends on the left. Sometimes a lot more than they like and it's a recurrent thing rejoiced as a study that came out of him with years ago when they were measuring the civic awareness of our college graduates.

The seniors and we gave them basically high school curriculum questions and most of them were getting somewhere between it being a couldn't identify the father of the Constitution or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or the senator's term. A secure lock.

These are basic facts and figures.

You need to know before you can even get to talk about policies that which is really sad statement on your website that says many of today's leaders do not actually want to leave. They just want to be the top person in charge that is not leadership at celebrity you say. So let's talk about that.

Let's talk about leadership is this generation Joshua designed to be an antidote to this kind of philosophy in our nation help out our organization described in the Americas life insurance policy, and the idea is that we train thousands of high school students every year on how our government works why it works that way, which is a crucial piece of it and then we give them the basic skill set to change it now back in the day.

Way back when having basic citizenship skills was just the assumed minimum of every American was responsibility of being a citizen today that ID is gone. So when you walking with basic competency and citizenship. Suddenly you're leaving because you're the only one who knows how it works, and so we had was we started teaching basic skills and discover those rapidly turned into leadership skills because if you can move people in a direction and give it a productive route going forward. To change what they view as an evil or wrong. People will follow the death of many of our celebrities today if you like to call attention to something like they rarely have carefully thought through. What a good solution to that is, or more often, they thought they were solution and the never thought about what the cost of that solution would be because everything you do have the cost writing me time to be money to be something else. But for most of you will like this is bad.

We should fix it. We should do this will be about what's the result of that as a practical example of that today is when people are mad about the electoral college. It's not that the popular will write will the end result, however, of that objection is usually that you minimize or muzzle the voices of people do not live in urban areas that they don't intend to do that when you talk to them but they haven't thought about 30 along with to realize the harm they're about to try and perpetrate in the idea of pursuing something that is is a reasonable thing that ever voices her right that sort of critical reasoning and the lack of it is terrifying when people that have huge amounts of influence are not wise is a great example about the electoral college example in your pocket there about ways that people are moving when they don't really understand the consequences. Sure practical example in my in my spare time which I don't have that much in my spare time I serve as a member of my local town Council practical result you're dealing with local government stuff right a lot of the local governments are country tents actually 10 pretty conservative people like to have their budgets balanced. They like their bills paid and they don't want to be taxed more.

They need to be right and it's a pretty straightforward approach to governance and sprinkle my friends on each side of the political aisle generally agree with that we differ in how to get there, but we like. However, they also like a calm peaceful environment would end result.

We had a local community about a year ago now to try to put together to come up music and arts festival in our town Park. This is, happens all across America today and they decided they wanted to make it peaceful for their solution to doing so peaceful but pleasant was to ban from a government Festival in Park any and all forms of political speech that you can be a candidate you can be a political party can advocate for policy occupant through a nonprofit advocating for policy didn't show up, but none of the candidates and none of the parties could show up either side did not just animal but they wanted anyone else to attempt. But what happened was they missed the fact that they were rolled right over top of something we call the First Amendment which is pretty my speech and freedom of speech, particularly in a public venue that is open to the public to public land you can't ban that sort of conduct. In fact, that is a clear violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution. These people intend to do that they had no idea.

In fact, they got proper counsel.

My guys we can't do this to me attorney. I one of the town attorneys myself were rushing to get in front of the committee to stop them before we got ourselves a lawsuit. We did it, and we may they like we didn't mean to. We were trying to filing the Constitution party apart right and they didn't know okay fine, but I was talking to attorney. Afterwards we were looking at some facts and figures and realize that the majority of violations are First Amendment speeches happen by local towns, local committees, local counties, etc., not federal stuff which we talk about federal civil time, but it happens on the local level because frankly, people are not educated into how these master governing principles like the Constitution apply to them and they get us in trouble all the time and that lack of civic awareness holistic. This is a bunch of 40 or 50-year-old folks on the committee for the town trying to work in the park, but they still bumped into our U.S. Constitution, not even realizing it and not through stuff happens all the time right now mean the most famous religious liberty violations of come at the hands of state government. So exactly very interesting from the electoral college to your local park. The lack of civic education runs across the gamut really does talk about what you teach as important leadership qualities that you hope to see in young people a fair number of those one of the first one and the sounds odd to be looking at a leadership quality. One of the first ones I recommend humility because of I'm working with young students very quickly. They will grab a piece of information and discover that they know all the things sorely for things to do with the common failing of our scores, but it's also common failing of adults and the result is that they try and then take their bit of information they know which may be true, and applied everything which is probably not how it have to go and the end result is that they they lose their ability to learn and if you look at our founding fathers. They were avid students from the very young to the very old. They were costly working to learn understanding that they were finite beings who did not know all things. So the goal was to be hungry to learn at the same time being true to the convictions of the leak repair humility with principal. Take your principles know them only hold them tightly do not necessarily hold your function as tightly because there would be better ways to do something and there's a lot of innovation and learning that can out of their particular symptom of hold those first principles dearly. Don't let them go. The problem we had of having is that leadership the idea of moving people in a direction moving people in a direction for a purpose, but you're going with them like there's an aspect of of chemo goes in there is an element of leaving people but there's also an element of principle or direction you're trying to go that requires listening to people that aren't like you even your team, you'll find there people who know things that you don't and a wise leader will listen to them and understand that they fill in areas that are your gaps require some self-awareness on your part to know what your weaknesses in and what your strengths are and it requires a lot of learning to develop a very week or to enhance others that are strong.

And then, frankly. Lastly, most importantly, is good communication skills because you have great knowledge and great wisdom but you can't tell anyone what that information is useless and I don't mean to be insulting but the inability to communicate that why that wisdom with good information. Anyone else frankly hampers any of the knowledge with new habit. It ends that you would doesn't continue what you want to be a leader you have to both gain my wisdom and understand this principle from the direction try to move in and member how to communicate that other people become told you can take all that good and share with others is not doing very much. It's just sitting in you so I think those are some of things we trying to teach our students how to do and that includes practical stuff like how does government workouts policy made of what the Constitution it and why are these principles important and why do we believe in innocent before proven guilty works in religious liberty or freedom of speech room freedom of the press all those good things. And then we teach you not only what those are, but how to communicate them to others because you can't do that last part having to repeat myself over and over without changing the nation as a whole were just repeating herself. This is part one of a two-part shell with Joel Grilli, Executive Director generation Joshua be sure to tune in next week for part two. You can listing the family housing matters.

We hope you enjoy the program and plenitude in again next week to listen to the show online into learn more about NC families were to inform, encourage and inspire families across filter a lot of our website it NC families on award that's NC family.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family