A lot of what people are talking about are perfectly good ideas, IF they’re implemented and executed by good, conscientious people. The problem is that over time, you can’t guarantee that you’ll always have those people executing those programs, or implementing the new ones.
And yeah, I think Frank Herbert had it right- I think that most people who seek power more than likely don’t have the best motives. I mean, the only reason I’d want power myself, would be so others don’t have it over me. But I have no desire to be responsible for anyone else, or tell them what to do, etc… And I’d really look askance at someone who does- it’s either a power trip, or it’s sketchy self-enrichment.
IMHO, reparations for slavery or discrimination isn’t such a bad thing in concept/theory: There is an arguable line of causation that slavery or discrimination from decades ago (or in the present-day) can have a continuous ripple effect that can result in Person A being worse off than Person B.
The problem is that there is virtually no practical way to do reparations for slavery or discrimination (for entire ethnic or other similarly large groups, as opposed to a small specific category such as interned Japanese-Americans) in a way that 1) won’t trigger enormous resentment and anger, and 2) won’t invite a bunch of people trying to freeload in on money they aren’t actually entitled to (i.e., “hey, I’m a tiny fraction black!”), and 3) won’t cause financial mayhem due to the immense sums that would have to be raised somehow and paid out and 4) won’t create a huge bureaucratic headache due to deciding who is truly deserving and who does not qualify.
You dont even have to say “hey, I’m a tiny fraction black!” you just have to self identify as black. And for those that think that is silly, how do we judge and where do we put the cut off? DNA tests wont do it.
I’m speculating but I think he’s talking about electrocution as a means of executing people. It was originally promoted as being more modern and humane than traditional methods like firing squads or hanging. But it turned out that being electrocuted often caused more suffering than being shot or hung.
The chair, the gas chamber, lethal injection. All three are unique and two for sure (arguably all three) induce demonstrably more cruelty than say, hanging (long not short drop) or beheading.
Since they are unique forms that ought to qualify them as “unusual.”
And setting someone on fire (literally for the chair and figuratively for lethal injection) or forcing them to actively participate in their own execution or be subjected to extended torture (gas chamber) would be deemed “cruel” in any civilized country.
So a country that is constitutionally opposed to cruel and unusual punishment went out of their way to invent and implement systems that are clearly both cruel and unusual.
Supposedly, the true suffering of the death penalty isn’t so much the physical aspect of the execution itself, but rather, the psychological torment of waiting years for the dreaded day to come, and knowing that the days/hours/minutes are steadily ticking down, all alone and unable to stop it.
I sure didn’t get that out of your post!
I don’t think how a criminal is killed matters nearly as much as if he should be killed. Killing an innocent man humanely does not give me the warm fuzzies.
Maybe, but one can also make the argument that things got better in the USSR post-Stalin as a deliberate reaction to Stalin’s rule and his excesses, and that if he hadn’t been quite so thorough of an asshole, there would have been no Khrushchev Thaw. (Khrushchev, of course, was no angel; he had been involved in the Stalinist purges of the 1930s too.)
My current client has designs which are over-engineered into unusability. Initial designs are already ridiculously complicated, then someone realized they didn’t really cover every case (since each factory does things in multiple ways, and each factory’s ways are different from those of every other factory*) and added patches, upon patches, upon patches… and ended up with an extremely complicated system where most people use only that functionality they’re not allowed to keep in Excel (so, financial stuff; everything else, Excel).
I see it as a showcase for, on one hand, why it’s important to be willing to homogenize where possible, and on the other, why it’s important to remember that the list of “business needs” must always, always, include “must be useful and usable” at the very top.
Sometimes the difference is along the lines of “we round 5 up” vs “we round 5 down”. Or different people who didn’t understand the math they’re supposed to apply “felt” that different modifications would be better, because as we all know, math is all about giving warm fuzzy feelings to people who shouldn’t have been granted those degrees they hold. This last one is an example of several things that are bad ideas: giving STEM degrees to people who don’t understand math at all, and a belief that how you feel is the correct way to define your math.
As always, “any virtue taken to extremes becomes a vice”.
For example, preventing the spread of an invariably deadly disease is a good idea.
Immediately executing anyone who shows symptoms of said disease is not, even though that on itself would be the perfect solution to the problem (the death person will certainly not infect another) the real world consequence would be that people who show signs of the disease would, more often than not, seek to hide it thus increasing the likelihood of the disease spreading.
This type of situation arises whenever a “Good Idea” becomes the moral cornerstone of people and groups, in the example people who would object to the summary executions would be labelled to be against the “Good Idea” (after all, killing people with the disease is, as said, the perfect solution), therefore immoral and to be ignored, shunned, or worse.
I’m not sure the OP had this kind of example in mind, but I think it’s a shame that most people have thrown out the idea of ever electing a successful businessperson again because of Trump (though his level of success is certainly questionable). A successful CEO is generally an excellent executive, and the Presidency is an executive position. While a knowledge gained from years of politicking regarding what the important issues are to individual members of congress (and therefore potential avenues to compromise) is critical, that information can be applied by advisors. I’d take a successful CEO with a history of surrounding themselves with the right people and an ability to delegate over most senators. CEO’s can often successfully switch to a completely different industry because executiveship (prob not a word) is the key skill.
Well, President George W. Bush was a businessman (with a debatable level of success), and his terms in office didn’t seem to prevent the eventual election of Trump.
I’ll go so far as to agree that we shouldn’t rule out ever electing a successful businessperson ever again. But are there any examples of CEO’s who went on to become good, effective governmental executives?
With Herbert Hoover an excellent example.
CEOs are used to dealing with executives and boards which they eventually get to pick. They seem to have trouble with a Congress which they don’t get to pick.
Eisenhower, who had to deal with leaders and generals from various power centers, had much better experience for being president than any CEO I can think of.
I’m a NYer and think Bloomberg was an incredibly effective administrator. He made a number of innovations in city admin that have been adopted in dozens of cities. While the bloom may have fallen off the rose in his third term, NYers were still willing to change the laws to allow him to serve one. I don’t want to get into a debate over individual policies because I’ll concede now he had his problems, but I think it’s safe to say his executive skills transitioned in tact.
I might be inclined to argue your point about boards of directors, but instead I’ll just happily concede that Congress would be a new challenge. The skill set of a senator doesn’t translate perfectly to the presidency either.
I want to make clear that I don’t think a successful business person is necessarily a good executive. And it’s not that I’m pushing for the election of business leaders to government office, so much as reacting to what lately seems like a reflexive dismissal of businesspeople from candidacy because “we’ve already tried that.”
I’d be much happier with someone who went from business to the cabinet, say where he had to deal with Congress and where he found out how Washington worked. Not that this is a guarantee of success. Hoover was in the Cabinet and Bush was governor. Straight from business to the presidency is a red flag. Fiorina would have been no more competent than Trump. Notice that she was a CEO, but a really bad one. Even before she was fired all my friends at HP hated her guts.