A FACEBOOK POST I DISAGREE WITH (WELL THERE ARE MANY)

While I do think the Met Gala evening may be imperfect, per the below Facebook post, why is it necessarily leadership to shun people?  If I were Mayor of New York City, I think I would lean in favor of going to a place where all this wealth and fame is located and encourage as many attendees as possible to lend support to important City initiatives.  I might even have a chance to give a brief speech.  So overall, I think my presence could help the City.  And therefore, by going, perhaps I might build a bridge or two (ie unity) as opposed to separation that is guaranteed by not attending.  Staying away is easy.  Going and mixing it up is the hard work.  But to me, that is the work of leadership. 

As for the idea of say Mr. Jeff Bezos refusing to pay his fair taxes, has anybody suggested that he has illegally evaded his taxes?  If so, the law should be enforced.  What the post seems to be saying is he only being fair if he voluntarily pays more taxes than required by the tax code.  Is there anybody who pays more taxes than required?

If as a society, we want Mr. Bezos and other rich people to pay more taxes, then should we not rise up and change the laws?  

As well, taxes paid in some cases overlooks a huge piece of the story.  There are many extremely affluent and talented people who are stunningly generous in their support of a variety of charitable and other related efforts, both with their money and their time.  And in doing so they have changed for the better millions of lives.  

So I strongly think we should do all we can to encourage more people to be more generous with their time and money.  Charitable activities including backing social entrepreneurs are voluntary and therefore from a Spiritual perspective draw down much more light and bang for the buck compared to taxes which are generally coercive.  Not all dollars are equal.  

People usually feel pretty good when they give, because it is voluntary and not coercive— and thus the perspective of “Give not until hit hurts but until it feels good.  Had Mayor Mamdani approached the Met Gala from the perspective of helping the city by helping people experience the joy of giving more, the result might have been win/win.  To me, that’s leadership.