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Monday, January 03, 2011
We'll see, won't
we?
Funny. I could have sworn there were instant videos of Pelosi being sworn in.
WILLIE.5.6-6.7. Over the holidays I had an old and valued friend explain why he contravened the Churchillian maxim that if you're not liberal when you're young, you have no heart, and if you're not conservative when you're old, you have no brain. He's followed the exact opposite route. For example, he's foursquare behind ObamaCare, based on an agonizing personal experience with impotent healthcare bureaucracy he compares unfavorably to what he's seen in Europe.
I didn't debate the subject with him. He's allowed his views. And I like and respect him. He also knows a lot about politics -- the sheer awfulness and tawdriness of it.
I'm not going to debate him backhandedly here, either, since I held my fire in our phone conversation. What I will do is offer two observations, one micro and one macro, I'd like everyone to think about as we embark on a new year.
Micro. It's impossible not to encounter the ridiculous waste, stupidity, and small-mindedness that characterizes every even fairly large organization in which we work or otherwise participate. Every corporate employee finds himself wishing for a deus ex machina who can descend from on high with clear judgment and a fair view of what is right and what is wrong. My observation? The bigger the organization, the less likely that clear judgment will ever occur. The greater the size, scope, and scale of the intervening authority, the more waste and absurdity we are likely to see. Truth is, all the ugly wasted effort we all encounter in the private sector is a marvel of efficiency compared to what government does. Inefficiency in the private sector is dealt with by financial death. Frequently ugly, to be sure, but sure. In the government sector it's dealt with by increasing the budget.
Macro. The people in charge, despite the Obama gloss, are still the Baby Boomers. And guess what? They've spent their whole lives looking for easy answers and now they're, well, exhausted. In every possible way. They've explored every nook and cranny of existence and they just don't believe in people anymore, because the people they know best are, TA DA, Baby Boomers. Who don't believe in anything. Because they've believed in everything you can possibly imagine except themselves. Who they always knew were never any damn good.
I'm not dissing my friend. I feel it myself.
What you're fighting as you try to save our nation. Fight well. And fight hard. We're the worst of all possible enemies. Better educated than you and completely filled with darkness.
