Ask yourself this, what would happen to you if you were incompetent at your job? What would happen to you if you were in management and people you supervised were constantly making poor decisions? What would your boss do to you? Would you still have your job? How many times would you be able to use the excuse that you just didn't know what some underling was doing? I bet it wouldn't take long before some disciplinary action was brought against you. It's likely that sooner or later you would be held accountable. If only it was that way in politics.
Back when W was president he used to like to use the incompetence excuse also. I spoke out against it. He told Brownie he was doing a helluva job even after the Katrina debacle. He claimed his intelligence agencies had no way of knowing about the 9/11 attacks even though several other intelligence agencies had sent warnings. He spoke of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when there were none. Time and again he claimed incompetence or no knowledge when handling events that they should have been better prepared to handle. I felt back then he should have been held accountable, and I feel now that Obama and his administration also ought to be held accountable for their incompetence and seeming inability to keep the president in the loop.
The thing is, you had the left running cover for the right and now you have the right running cover for the left. Back when Bush was president, I believe it was Nancy Polosi, one of leaders of the left, who said that impeachment was off the table. Why would someone on the left say that of Bush? Why would these supposedly staunch philosophical opponents remove their strongest weapon for keeping the powerful in check? The answer is simple. They already knew that one day their guy would be in power, this time sooner rather than later. When that happened, they wanted their guy to be able to get away with the same bullshit the other guy got away with. In the political game, they know it's power that matters, not principle.
I don't expect Obama to be held accountable for his administration's foibles, much as I'd like to see that happen. Of course, I would have liked to have seen the Bush administration held accountable for their misdeeds also. The fact that they weren't is one reason why I don't believe the Obama administration will be either. None of these people are ever held accountable, not unless you count Richard Nixon being forced to resign, and he hardly did anything as reprehensible as these past few administrations. But then, he did put an end to American involvement in the Vietnam conflict which had to anger the powers that be to no end.
In the world of politics and public bureaucracies, it seems that incompetence is almost always rewarded rather than punished. The incompetent don't get fired, they get more money for their department's budget as if throwing more money at them will make them more competent. Powerful representatives don't get booted out of office by the electorate, but the overwhelming majority of incumbents are re-elected even when they've been incompetent, usually because he or she seems or is portrayed as the least incompetent choice of those running for office. It's the devil you know versus the devil you don't syndrome. In such an environment, is it any surprise that the system breeds incompetence? In such an environment, is it any surprise that people seem to almost strive to be as incompetent as possible? Or is there some malicious intent behind the scenes that wishes to create an illusion of incompetence to see how much they can get away with, how much control they can command before the common folk sit up, take notice, and begin to deny their consent to be ruled.
Perhaps that's been the problem all along. Perhaps there really is a secret elite class that controls all the politicians. Perhaps this has been their plan all along. Perhaps there is a conspiracy to centralize all the power of human activity and commerce into the hands of a few people at the top who will be able to dictate to the rest of us what to do so that they can engineer a society based on their vision of what humanity should be rather than everyone else's. Perhaps they don't even care about building a consensus anymore, although they'd like you to think they do so that if you disagree you'll think you're in a minority and that you can change things simply by convincing others to accept your point of view.
If there is a cabal working behind the scenes than maybe the puppets they control aren't so incompetent after all, maybe they're just following orders. After all, Obama seems to be a fairly intelligent guy. Even Bush seemed quite intelligent and articulate before he became president when he suddenly became a caricature of a southern bumpkin. How can men who seem so intelligent suddenly become so incompetent after being elected president? Is it more likely that there is some sort of malicious intent at work here? Is it more likely that there is a secret agenda being implemented? Could there be forces at work trying to manipulate the masses of humanity into accepting some form of authoritarian world government? Or is our political system such a failure that we are destined to forever elect incompetents into the supposedly most powerful office in the world?
Whatever the case, incompetence, malicious intent, or both, the recent scandals have shown that the system is beyond broken. How can we continue to accept a president who consistently doesn't know what those under his supervision are doing? How can we accept a president who doesn't seem able to appoint high level staff who are capable of operating within the parameters set down for them by law? How can we continue to reward incompetence by giving those who prove incompetent even more power? How can we continue to give more trust those who consistently abuse or mishandle the trust they have already been given?
The time has come to reduce the power entrusted to the administrative branch of the federal government. The time has come to enforce the limits of power on the federal government as set down in the Constitution. The time has come to investigate the incompetence and to determine whether malfeasance is involved and where it has come from. It is not enough to simply accept that low level bureaucrats who take their marching orders from above were somehow so incompetent that they couldn't do their jobs correctly. Somehow, someone at the top was involved. It's long past time that those at the top were held accountable for what those below them do.
If you enjoy my writings, please visit szandorblestman.com to make a donation.
Below is a list of all my works available at smashwords.com. Please help me by purchasing one or more of my ebooks and writing favorable reviews if you like them so that others might also find and enjoy them.
Caged in America: A Collection of Essays Celebrating Freedom. By Szandor Blestman
Ron Paul's Wisdom, A Layman's Perspective. A Collection of Opinion Editorials. By Szandor Blestman
Galaxium. A screenplay By Matthew Ballotti
The Colors of Elberia; book 1 of The Black Blade Trilogy. By Matthew Ballotti
The Legacy of the Tareks; book 2 of The Black Blade Trilogy. By Matthew Ballotti
The Power of the Tech; book 3 of The Black Blade Trilogy. By Matthew Ballotti
The Edge of Sanity. By Matthew Ballotti
The Ouijiers By Matthew Ballotti
No comments:
Post a Comment