Don't Just Do Something...Stand There!

That's the advice my father once gave me about responding to an emergency or crisis.  Sometimes, when you don't have all the facts, it's better to watch and wait then to take precipitous action.  Two of my favorite historical figures, living almost two thousand years apart, exemplify this appeal to reason and patience.

The first is Rabbi Gamaliel ben Simeon the Elder.  He lived in Roman-occupied Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.  He was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council.  He is revered in Jewish tradition as one of the greatest rabbis in history, a grandson of Hillel the Elder.  One of his students was Saul of Tarsus, later to become Paul the Apostle.

Acts 5 records what happened when Peter and his fellow apostles were brought before the Sanhedrin for judgment, with some members calling for their execution:

But one member, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, who was an expert in religious law and respected by all the people, stood up and ordered that the men be sent outside the council chamber for a while. Then he said to his colleagues, “Men of Israel, take care what you are planning to do to these men! Some time ago there was that fellow Theudas, who pretended to be someone great. About 400 others joined him, but he was killed, and all his followers went their various ways. The whole movement came to nothing. After him, at the time of the census, there was Judas of Galilee. He got people to follow him, but he was killed, too, and all his followers were scattered.

“So my advice is, leave these men alone. Let them go. If they are planning and doing these things merely on their own, it will soon be overthrown. But if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even find yourselves fighting against God!”

The others accepted his advice.

Gamaliel's level head and even temperament are worthy of emulation.  If only he were alive today, maybe with his own talk show.

 How would Calvin Coolidge have put it?  "If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you."  Coolidge modeled the same steadiness exhibited by Gamaliel.  He was also a man without pretensions who understood and respected, even venerated, the limitations placed on his office, and the federal government as a whole, by the U.S. Constitution.  He was probably the last president to take the oath of office without perjuring himself.

History remembers him as "Silent Cal."  He once explained his reticence saying, "The words of a President have an enormous weight and ought not to be used indiscriminately,"  Most politicians, presidents included, love to hear themselves talk.  Coolidge was not one of them.

Coolidge took his responsibilities as president seriously and was loath to draw attention to himself.  He campaigned the same way.  During the 1924 contest his campaign speeches addressed policy and the role of government.  He never even mentioned his opponents by name.

I fear the days of sober, non-pretentious leadership in our government are long past.  I hope I'm wrong.  It's happened before.