His post on God, Heaven, and Other Controversial Beliefs caught my attention. Then he followed up with classics like ‘10 Things I Wish I Never Believed‘, ‘10 Reasons Target is Better Than Walmart‘ (I agree whole heartedly), and the recent ‘When Did America Become a Nation of Frightened Wimps?‘
Steve guarantees that you will be provoked into thoughts, sometimes moved to action. In speaking with him, he revealed that he also bears a responsibility to interact with his audience so that his insightful posts are not taken to extremes.
On the surface, Steve seems like your regular Joe: wife, 2 sons, developer manager. However, just beneath the surface, and sometimes out front and center, Steve is a passionate ex-politician. His fervor for freedom comes through with every post on his site. His eyes are trained on creating a better future for his family, and by extension the world.
I present to you Steve Olson.
Nneka - You changed your site tag from “In Pursuit of Personal Freedom” to “For People Pursuing Freedom”. What’s the difference?
Steve - Actually, the original tag was “On a Quest for Personal Freedom.” I changed it to “For People Pursuing Freedom” because I didn’t feel the original tag included my readers. This isn’t just about my family and me it is about everyone. I believe we are all pursuing freedom to one degree or another.
Nneka - What is freedom to you?
Steve - Living our lives without anyone (including government) initiating force or fraud against us, and when people do initiate force against us, having the right to defend ourselves.
Real freedom includes the freedom to feel the pain of our poor decisions as well as the freedom to feel the joy of our good decisions.
Nneka - One of the most interesting things about you (to me anyway), is that you ran for office. What prompted you to do that?
Steve - Strangely enough, I stumbled into it. At the time, I was driving a truck for a living. I was bored with my job and my life and I wanted to learn about the political process. I decided to go a neighborhood political caucus meeting to find out how it worked.
Because of something that I said (I don’t know what) at the neighborhood caucus, they elected me as a delegate to the district caucus. I spoke at the district caucus, and they voted to send me to the Minnesota State Convention. I don’t recall what I said. After the district caucus, I was approached by several people and they asked me to run for the Minnesota State House of Representatives. I was shocked. I went home and spent several sleepless nights considering the idea. And after much hand wringing, I decided to do it, for one reason – if I didn’t jump on the opportunity I’d always wonder… what if I had run? What would have happened? So instead of worrying… I ran. And I ran with my heart leading the way.
Nneka - What did you enjoy about running for office?
Steve - The part most politicians hate – knocking on doors. I’ve NEVER felt more in touch with the people then the time I spent knocking on doors and talking with people face to face about what was important to them.
I loved knocking on doors. Politicking gave me an excuse to walk up to someone’s house, knock on their door, tell them who I was, and ask them what was important to them.
From May until Election Day in November I knocked on 8,000 doors and wore out two pairs of shoes.
I could write a book about my experiences knocking on doors.
Here’s one story:
In a more rural part of the district, I had to drive from door to door. I visited a poorly maintained house in the woods at the end of long driveway. The house didn’t have a doorbell, so I knocked on the old wooden screen door. A tall thin middle-aged man with a graying beard answered the door. I introduced myself, told him who I was, what I was doing, and why I was doing it. Then he asked the dreaded question…
What party?
Usually when a person asks party affiliation, they will either love you or hate you without knowing a thing about you. I’ve discovered that most party politics is nothing but pure prejudice.
I said, “Republican”
He flung the screen door open almost hitting me, pointed his finger in my face and began screaming obscenities. Spit flew from his mouth. I backed slowly away down the stairs toward my car. With each step backward, he stepped forward and continued his hateful tirade. I thought he was going to attack me. I jumped into my car, and backed down the quarter mile driveway. At the end of the driveway, I stopped to see if he was coming after me. He wasn’t. My heart was thumping and I had a death grip on the wheel. I was experiencing the classic ‘fight or flight’ symptoms of fear. It was getting late in the day and I thought about quitting, going home, having something warm to drink, and relaxing on the couch.
Then this thought popped into my head – No. Don’t quit. Never give up! Go to the next house, it will be better.
At the next house, I met a wonderful family. I had warm meaningful conversation and by the time I left, they had contributed $100.00 to my campaign and had volunteered to help with fund raising.
I learned a valuable lesson that day. Never give up, even in the face of hate, hostility, and fear. Many times the greatest rewards lay just beyond the fog of doubt.
Nneka - Democrat or Republican and why?
Steve - At the time there was a Republican revolution happening in America. It was full of promise. I was idealistic and I wanted to change the world. Since then the revolution has fizzled and became identical to the system I hoped it would replace.
I choose the Republican Party for one reason:
I believe in freedom, both economic and social – In fact, I don’t believe there is a difference. Without economic freedom, social freedom is an illusion. It is an academic fantasy. For example - If the government outlaws a personal freedom (sexual rights) and they also confiscate most of what you earn, how can you change the law? What resources will you have to fight them? The government will have all the power, wealth, and resources and we will have none. We won’t be able to take action on our own. Our economic freedom is what gives us the ability to protect our personal freedom. If we lose our economic freedom, we will have to petition the government to fund our own complaints against them. So what if the government doesn’t want us to complain? Then what?
Most Democratic politicians in America aren’t liberals they are actually socialists and for the above reasons, I abhor socialism. I believe socialism is nothing but delegation of your personal responsibility to your fellow man. Delegation to an impersonal central government. So I choose the Republican Party, which seemed to campaign against socialism, but when I look closely at what they do today, they aren’t much different than the Democrats. They talk differently, but act nearly the same.
Nneka - How can I become a conscious voter?
Steve - This is the hardest question you’ve asked. The best piece of advice I can give is this…
Most politicians are telling you what you WANT to hear. So in order to bring politics directly into your consciousness and change them, you must change what you WANT to hear.
As long as we continue to want to be told lies, politicians will keep telling us lies. True change lies within us, not outside of us. Don’t wait for a politician to come along with the right answer, start thinking about the solution you’d like to see. I’d avoid any politician that provides all the answers, and gravitate toward any politician that tells me I am the answer.
Nneka - What would you do to change the face of politics?
Steve - I don’t know what I’d do, but I will tell you what I’d like to see happen.
I’d like to discuss an idea on it merits, openly and honestly, without personal attacks or demagoguery. Issues like terrorism, immigration, globalization, education, and health care. I have yet to hear an honest open debate between intelligent people about these issues. All I hear are personal attacks and smears.
Here is one thing I would do…
I would ask all politicians to stop telling the voters that they have all the answers, and begin telling the voters to stop delegating their responsibilities to the government and start helping each other create a better tomorrow.
Nneka - What would your platform be today if you ran for president?
Steve - This is a big question and I’m afraid my answer won’t do it justice.
My platform would be almost entirely things I’d stop government from doing and one new thing I’d start doing.
The first thing I would end is our nation’s interventionist foreign policy. While I do believe in freedom for all people everywhere, I don’t believe we can achieve it at the barrel of a gun, attempting to coerce others into seeing our point of view.
I’d do my best to promote an environment of trust and altruism. I’d use the office as a way to broadcast the ideals of human freedom to the world.
Nneka - In a country that treasures the separation of church and state, how can you (or would you even) bring spirituality to politics?
Steve - Spirituality will always be present in politics. We vote for people and you can’t separate people from their spirit because we are – at our core - spiritual beings.
But I agree with those that say we should not have a state religion that we impose on others, but that certainly doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have spiritual people as leaders.
I disagree with those that say that leaders should not express spiritual thoughts or make decisions based on upon their spirituality. I want to know where leaders stand and the current environment stifles talk of spirituality.
I think it is clear that we can be students of the great mystics and study world religions without imposing ‘Sharia Law’ or ‘Christian Fundamentalism’ upon our nation. There is a big difference between ‘being spiritual’ and forcing your own beliefs upon others. I think most reasonable people understand that.
Nneka - What is your personal spiritual practice?
Steve - I believe in God. I believe you are part of God and I am part of God. I believe everything that exists is part of God. And I practice it by trying – and sometimes failing – to give the same respect to everything in creation that I would give to God.
But specifically – I pray.
Steve I look forward to learning more about responsibility, freedom, and politics from you.
In Spirit,
Nneka
