We need leaders who understand, and have BOUNDARIES.

[havocmom]

Not borders, like existed between countries before the huge corporations took over and erased them, but BOUNDARIES. Those personal and societal lines civilized, mentally healthy people do no cross. Those commonly held limits that prevent the worst assaults on communally held standards and civility.

Boundaries are what make it possible for us all to coexist. They are the spoken (laws) and unspoken (customs, traditions) rules by which most members of a society tacitly agree to engage. They are the acceptable limits of behavior.

Cross my personal boundaries and you may be forgiven, but will likely have it explained to you also. That's how I work after spending lots of time studying boundaries and working on not being a doormat by people who claim to care about me. My personal boundaries also prevent me from doing things that will damage me, others, society.

My personal boundaries include provisions about respect, both others and self. Helps maintain the balance between giving or taking too much. Helps maintain health, be it physical, mental, spiritual. One HAS to know when to stop certain activities, lest one overextend themselves in ways that damage one's core body, mind, soul. They prevent me from accepting too much abuse from others; they limit the levels of damage I am willing to accept, to aid in preventing damage from reaching a level I cannot recover from.

My personal boundaries are set to where I do not expect everyone around me to agree with me on all things. Sadly, some people do not have theirs set similarly and are often offended, enraged by things that are commonly accepted by the society as a whole. Those people generally have a lot of frustration and bitterness, feeling they are constantly being assaulted and threatened.

I do not think my personal boundaries are much different from those of most others in my society. Some are better honed, some more rigid, some more flexible because that which they govern is of less import. But most are pretty much in step with the society I grew up in and inhabit. And boundaries evolve as our experiences expand our understanding and perspective.

We do not hold youngsters to the same standards as we maintain for adults. That is a boundary. We help kids to learn and grow. We teach and we try to lead by example. As a child grows, we expect more civilized behavior. We expect boundaries to be coming into place and behavior to be modified to fit within the parameters of commonly understood communal social boundaries.

We do not hold our infirm and diminished to the same standards. We know they are not as able for whatever reason and we allow for more violations or commonly understood communal social boundaries. We show some empathy and make some allowances. Until serious breech of the norm occurs and a person's behavior may constitute a threat to self or community, we tend to just deal with oddities or just avoid those who are constantly odd beyond what is acceptable to OUR personal boundaries.

Where boundaries do not exist, or do not function in ways that allow for reasonable interaction with others in society, problems arise and continue unresolved. Some times the professionals will give such malfunctioning boundaries labels such as 'personality disorder'. If the lack of boundaries is serious enough, it may get labeled as a mental illness. Sometimes these unproductive or unacceptable variances form the societal norms can be addressed (treated) and modified to more productive personal habits which allow for better interaction with society. Sometimes, sadly, they cannot.

We live in our own community. Community has layers. I have my family, my extended family, my friends, acquaintances, neighbors, town and political groups as communities. We all have pretty much the same, and jointly we expand community to include larger groups, perhaps church, state, nation, professional and so on. Each level has different sets of boundaries, of what will and won't be acceptable behavior. It takes some effort to learn the unwritten rules and know what rules (behavior) is allowable by what level of community one may be interacting at a given time.

Some of us are fortunate enough to personally belong to communities that are international. Involvement in such communities can be tremendously enriching and broadening. It can make us more than we were before, more aware of more possibilities, of conditions, of life in all its amazing variety.

Then there are the people, who through birth or endeavor, go on to be citizens of the grand community that is our entire planet. They can do great good or great harm, depending on where the boundaries are set. Hitler’s were set to allow him to do great harm. The Mahatma Ghandi’s were set to make him a highly responsible citizen and teacher. Generals have boundaries that allow for some killing, but stop at others. Officers have boundaries that are supposed to work to keep their subordinates alive and working within parameters that should prevent unnecessary problems.

Leaders need boundaries that allow them to work productively with other leaders, to understand other peoples, have empathy for other people’s needs, desires, and conditions. Leaders have to have solid boundaries in order to protect us from others with poor or no boundaries. Leaders need to be AWARE and to have high personal standards. Those standards have to include knowing when to give and when to hold a line. Boundaries are the soil from which judgment sprouts and grows.

We do not flourish under leadership that has low standards, under leaders who do not have healthy functioning personal boundaries. The past several years have been a sad and glaring example of that truth. As a nation we are not as respected. As a nation, we are hated by many, and sadly, some have damned good reasons now. As a people, we lack inspiring examples of healthy boundaries. That makes it easy for those whose boundaries are not well set to justify their poor behaviors. And it makes it more likely that more and more of us will abandon the standards we used to maintain for our personal behaviors. It makes it easier to lie and cheat, when we see the leadership do it daily.

Our nation needs to work at restoring our place within the international community. To accomplish this, we need to demonstrate that we have healthy, functioning boundaries, that we RESPECT other nations and we ADHERE TO RULE OF LAW our selves. We need to prove we intend to operate with honor, within boundaries they can rely on and trust to be stable enough for healthy relations.

Our nation does not need leaders whose questionable boundaries allow them to sing about bombing a people who have done us no harm.

Our nation does not need leaders whose questionable boundaries allow them to hide their personal dealings if they figure they can gain from hiding them from our scrutiny.

Our nation does not need leaders whose questionable boundaries allow them to hope to profit personally or financially from tragedy.

Our nation does not need leaders whose questionable boundaries let others justify their own destructive behaviors.

Our nation does not need leaders whose questionable boundaries allow them to break laws for their own gain, or the gain of their patrons; to harm society for gain or profit.

Our nations does not need leaders who lessen us rather than inspire and lift us to make ourselves better people, better citizens of our communities and the world.

We need leaders with boundaries and standards. This crap of any means to an end HAS to stop. There has to be law and there has to be standards. Leadership should LEAD, not abuse for lack of healthy boundaries.

Look at the choices we have for our General Election. Look for where the healthy boundaries are. Look at who is defending those boundaries and who is abusing them.

Look for what is healthy and reject what is not healthy. Look beyond self and to the greater good, and pick leaders who share that view. Look for leaders who have vision and real values, boundaries. Do not follow those who do not have such qualities, for they are not leaders, but con artists and narcissists. Do not follow someone who may have a title but who fails to truly inspire others to fulfill potential.

Leaders lead, within boundaries and standards of what is best for the greater community. And We the People can be the leaders. We can set the boundaries. For our democracy to survive, we must take up this mantle and reject any applicants for leadership positions who do not share our boundaries.

The standards for what is acceptable have sunk to such low levels that applicants for the positions of leadership seem to feel we have no standards, no boundaries.

They are wrong. We have boundaries and we need to re-establish, reaffirm standards.

We need leaders who have boundaries, and who respect ours.

[caseycoon]

1. A big AMEN! K&R n/t

[havocmom]

2. Thanks for that, caseycoon

You must tell me about your screen name sometime. ;)

[caseycoon]

6. Many years ago...

I had a pet raccoon named Casey. I loved him like he was my child. Since I have been online using that name (1997) everyone calls me Casey & that's just fine with me!
:D

[havocmom]

7. Thanks for that story.

Havoc was a beloved pet cat, so I understand the homage. :hi:

[caseycoon]

10. Ahhh.... You too!

They are always with us!
:toast:

[msongs]

3. you mean obama's boundaries saying it is ok to attack pakistan? nt

[havocmom]

4. If a nation poses a clear threat, competent leaders address that threat

If a leader is asked a hypothetical question, a hypothetical response in answer to the question is within boundaries for most of us.

If a country does not pose a clear threat, and nobody posed a question, competent leaders do not callously sing about bombing other countries, and further show their lack of healthy boundaries by thinking their little performance is cute and worthy of accolades, or even acceptance.

[nashville_brook]

5. that's actually a great example -- Pakistan's "stan" provinces are where OBL's terrorist network

actually reside. by addressing the threat there, instead of in Iraq where there was no threat, our leadership would have been exercising legitimate boundaries.

[havocmom]

8. Thanks for that

Boundaries well explained in that context and for that part of the world. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[EFerrari]

9. I'm so glad you brought up boundaries

because I couldn't figure out how to say it to DU -- and here, you said it straight ahead and so clearly.

We are a nation of abused spouses and we have to recognize that. We have to understand that appeasing our abusers only continues the abuse.

Hillary Clinton did exactly what an abuser does, yesterday. She re-traumatized us, casually and thoughtlessly. It takes a very special kind of mind to inflict that kind of pain on another, let alone, on others, and not to have any awareness of that act and what it means.

K&R

[havocmom]

11. It started as a reply to a post in GD-P about that heartless remark yesterday

But as I wrote, I got into 'bigger picture' mode and it took on a life of its own. That'll teach me to post before the coffee kicks in ;)

Having worked with people in very stressful life situations and taking some time to learn about communication and pitfalls of human relations, I did a bit of work on boundaries. They apply to more than we usually realize. There are an awful lot of ills which can be laid at the feet of poor;y understood, or non-existent boundaries.

If our boundaries are not firm enough for us to even recognize, we are at risk of being swayed into following an abuser and suffering for it. It is the stock and trade of cults: go for those with a weak sense of self (lack of boundaries) Or, we can become the abuser and create suffering (disregard of boundaries)

Children who know there are boundaries are more secure as they grow and develop to the points where they can set their own boundaries.

Thanks for coming up with the analogy I could not.

We don't need unaware abusers as leaders. We have suffered enough. McCain can sing all he wants to, we are not behind the plan to bomb bomb bomb Iran. That other former candidate, she can blow away. We don't need leaders without boundaries and limits to their behavior. We've had quite enough of that.

[joneschick]

12. kicked, recommended and bookmarked

thank you so much!
I tried to write a thoughtful response, but nevermind---you nailed it and I appreciate it. :hi:

[havocmom]

13. Thanks, joneschick

It started as something else and morphed. So many ills of our society can be traced back to not having or not respecting boundaries.

[Hidden Stillness]

14. A More "Mental" Interpretation

(NOTE: I read this thread, then thought about it and was going to respond. The comments later on on the thread, about a Primaries Forum thread, and the thing that Hillary Clinton did or did not say, refer to something I did not read and don't know anything about. I was thinking of this thread as a general message, and as a matter of fact, with all the recent news about Ted Kennedy, the thought I had about the model of public-spirited love of people and of country, was of the Kennedys, Roosevelts, etc., as opposed to the almost comical frightfulness of Bush-Cheney-Rove-Republicans, etc. I also think it's odd that a male candidate who refuses to answer a woman reporter's question here in Michigan, and arrogantly calls her "Sweetie," is just fine. "Oh we only want to face YOUR hypocrisy, not mine." There are a lot of anger-boundaries broken every day on DU; witness the never-ending hatred of Christians, cheered on by others with no boundaries.)

I think the increasingly neurotic loss of social/emotional boundaries is yet another horrific result of an unregulated commercial media, encouraging further and further retreat into a self-absorbed fantasy world, more and more feeling of unhappy discontent and general "lack," just to manipulate purchasing behavior. Increasingly tearing down all walls of civility and concern for others, as "conformity" and "not getting mine." Worsening treatment of women, the troublemakers, as "entertainment," and people do not want to admit where a lot of this comes from. I still remember the rage I felt at having to listen to "Saturday Night Live" during the 1970s, (the "great" years), when this prick Akroyd would say, "Jane, you ignorant slut," or "Jane, you ignorant bitch," to howls of the master's laughter. Listened to rap music lately; oppression and threat. This is all just a straight conduit, socially acceptable, for the male's violent hatred of us, enforced by social norm. People recede further away, they become just electronic symbols or presentations, and everything is for my judgment or comfort.

I even remember when the word "bitch" was considered so hateful, so offensive, so vulgar, that you would almost never hear it used. Not after the corporate media replaced the influence of society itself. Now it is the first attack-word reached for; an all-purpose hit. The media doesn't challenge people's bigoted or offensive attitudes; it encourages them, to exploit them.

How much of our suffering is caused by our own refusal to accept the separate rights and existences of others, and instead just childishly demanding that they all conform to "my way"? This leads into the psychological problem of the pseudo-"leader" who runs for office because they want to be the center of the world, and not because they think of the world, and want to help it. If anything suggests Bush, the spoiled, cruel rich boy who will always end up winning, or Cheney, the fuming bastard who will make all the world pay for every slight ever imagined, it is this.

The internet, of course, being an anonymous, distant technology that pretended to be "personal contact," also led inevitably, with some people, to this raging, thwarted-emotion "target practice" against others. You never get the actual feedback from a real, offended, hurt person, that would have stopped you, as in real life. The more cut off and stratified this and any other society becomes, and the more any real contact and resolution of problems is replaced by hostile interactions with the figments you believe other people really are, the more there will be this angry, yet emotionally dead behavior that cannot even feel anymore the effects of its insults and hurts. The world itself just becomes like a commercial product that I paid for and can't get to work the way I want it, and so there is the frustrated anger of the "entitled." The only solution is to admit where we are, and to take the step that is right next to us, rather than endlessly pretending we are all only one step away from the clouds and the stars.

I took the OP of this thread to mean a more general, psychological/social problem, of increasing abuse and "venting" in society, where once that would have been criticized and not allowed to become so widespread. As we all know with emotional problems and "counterproductive" behavior, you can never really get rid of it or stop acting like it, until you yourself don't like it anymore, and you like the examples of people acting the opposite way and want to follow them. This current commercial-product-disguised-as-a-culture, however, still paints abuse, name-calling, rude and cruel treatment, as "funny" and "a great victory."

[opihimoimoi]

15. Kick.....Bush is a horrible Leader, so much so, he is a loser...

A combo of things: Poor staff giving his shit to say, and 2, il-prepared to take office in the first place...

Does not know how to converse over a wide range of issues

Does not engage with finding out more so that he CAN talk/discuss shit with other Leaders.

Does not think with Empathy for the common peeps, nor common interest....

[fed-up]

16. k/r nt