Thursday, March 24, 2011

Presence of Malice: Against the Conservative Portrait of the President

This article appeared in American Digest. I have been saying this for some time now.
We can survive many traits in presidents, but malice is not among them. In the unfolding saga of the Libyan adventure I note that, even though it is early innings, a popular strain of conservative criticism centers around the always popular idea of 'stupidity in government;' with a variant on the subset of 'the president is not as smart as he thinks.' The popular variant this time is: 'deep down, Obama is shallow.' This notion includes various complimentary subsets such as 'he is lazy,' 'he is incompetent,' 'he's hooked on the perks and doesn't care for the work.' All comfortable notions that imply that the critic is, conversely, smarter, more diligent, and more fit to make governmental decisions than the president. The problem here is that the critic is not the president and hence has no power to do anything remotely presidential. (Continue reading...)
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice." ~ Heinlein's Razor

I think we're being far to quick to rule out malice, because up until now, a malicious president simply hasn't been part of American history.

3 comments :

  1. Lately, I've been thinking that "Kakistocracy" doesn't even begin to describe our government. The malice from the 'progressives' and the cowardice of the 'conservatives'.

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  2. talking too much about Kakistocracy seems absurd to those who are victims of corruptions. there are millions of people who talked and found solutions on poverty cause by mal-managing of the leaders. what i mean is that talking is not enough, what the necessary thing to do is "acting" the words that we talk. give something to help the poor, do not talk too much to them cause it will never give them food on their table.

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  3. Inocence, I make no distinction between the rich and the poor. Oppression is bad no matter to whom it happens. The poor are better off when everyone is better off. The rich give more when they have more to give. And even when they spend their wealth selfishly, it still creates jobs and spreads the wealth. It just isn't the government doing it, and wasting the majority of it. The free market doesn't waste much at all.

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