Former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland addressed that theme this afternoon for a John Locke Foundation audience.
Rowland served a 10-month prison sentence on a tax charge after winning three elections to serve in his home state’s top executive office.
Rowland explained the mindset that contributes to the “arrogance of power.” Among his themes was “conscious avoidance.” (Here’s a video clip of the quote below.)
Conscious avoidance is the problem that takes place for leaders when you’re the leader of a small company or a large company and things are going well. You like what’s occurring in sales, but you know that three salespeople might be a little bit over the line in what they’re doing, and how they’re progressing, and how they’re handling their jobs. But you like the results, so what do you do? You look the other way. You just assume — you consciously avoid what’s going on — because you like the end results of the sales.
You see that in the political world. You know that your political staff, you know that your own staff and commissioners and people are doing things that perhaps might be a little over the line. And by the way, it starts small. It starts with a fruit basket, and then it’s a car. It starts with campaign contributions, and then it’s college tuition being paid for. It starts with something small — a favor — and then it becomes a job for somebody else, a relative.
And so it generally starts with a small entitlement mentality and then gets out of control. And even the leader — the political leader — will consciously avoid what’s happening in that process because they like the results — winning an election, winning a budget battle, whatever the case may be.
C-SPAN plans to air the entire speech soon. Stay tuned to the John Locke Foundation for announcements about the air date.
