Hanlon’s Razor
August 11, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Communism, Congress, Dan Scott, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Free Trade, Freedom, Government, Corruption, Health, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, President, Rights, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Taxes, Welfare | Comments Off
-By Dan Scott
There is a lot of invective being flung around by liberals and conservatives these days regarding the each other’s motivations. We hear accusations of “un-American”, unpatriotic, astro-turfing, the police accused of acting stupidly, etc. All of these invectives are nothing more than an attempt to sidestep the legitimate concerns of people asking questions instead of properly showing leadership by addressing the concerns. It seems some people confuse leadership with salesmanship. A leader who expects people to follow them must engender trust for that to happen; clearly hurling invectives at the followers doesn’t engender trust. A salesman is expected to narrowly focus on the sales points of the product they want to sell; a leader has no such latitude. A leader’s responsibility is to explore both the positives and negatives. It’s a pretty incompetent leader who thinks they should horn swoggle people in order to persuade them. Incompetence combined with arrogance many times is mistaken for malice.
Whether it is the Federal Budget, Cap & Trade or Healthcare Reform, these issues are far more complex than the sales points and wrongly assumes everyone affected by these issues understands all the details. One of the biggest mistakes a leader can make is to assume everyone understands what the issues are, what the details are and then assign a negative motivation to those who don’t see things the same way. Given the inappropriate comments from Nancy Pelosi and President Obama towards those who disagree with their solutions and characterization of it they display their incompetence in engendering trust. They may be frustrated with the dissent, however, it is their failure the leadership to clearly articulate what they want to do and transparently write the language before Congress to implement their plans. You cannot blame people for misunderstanding your plans if you are not willing to answer their concerns by transparently CHANGING the language in the bill before Congress to address those concerns. It is not an act of transparency to presume upon people by saying, “trust me.”
Neither President Obama, Nancy Pelosi nor Harry Reid has made any attempts to change the confusing or offending language. It seems they have dug their heels in deeper defending their egos by personalizing attacks on the people, which makes them come off as arrogant. In terms of leadership, their actions thus far are incompetent. As Hanlon’s Razor states, “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” Many conservatives are quick to jump to the conclusion there is malice underlying the liberal’s current legislative agenda. In some cases, I suggest we are jumping the gun in assigning this motive; a far more universally accepted conclusion regarding the behavior of President Obama and Nancy Pelosi is simply incompetence. In fact, I suggest to you who are moderates and independents trying to sort out what information and characterization is accurate as to any of the issues that conservatives and liberals are disagreeing over is to ignore the invectives entirely. Personal opinion is not truth and name calling or assigning nefarious motives to either side is a distraction from the real issue – the facts.
Since Healthcare Reform has at this point been so poisoned by invective and the unwillingness of liberals to clearly address the concerns of the public I think we can safely conclude that the legislation currently before Congress is so fatally flawed that it should not be passed into Law. Any legislation that is so muddled as this one is simply bad legislation and should be scrapped. No legislation is better than bad legislation since starting from scratch at least gives a reasonable possibility of crafting clear language with no hidden surprises. The failure of leadership by liberals must give way to humility to engender trust. Failing humility, liberals can only accept the label of arrogance by everyone. Both Nancy Pelosi and President Obama must take personal responsibility to publicly apologize to the nation for their failure of leadership since they have been the most vocal about their condescending remarks.
The other legislation such as Stimulus and Cap & Trade has not been adequately aired before the public. Unfortunately, liberals have been equally as non-transparent about Cap & Trade by couching this in moral terms to the point of calling people who disagree as enemies of the planet who want to slash and burn their way through life. Such invectives again sidestep legitimate causes for concern. So let’s make some observations here about the practicality of President Obama’s objectives for the country. An objective that cannot practically be implemented is a policy failure and therefore is a leadership issue.
Are you aware that President Obama has blocked all new domestic drilling of any kind? I ask you to consider these two points:
- Americans from enjoying 1.2 million new, well-paying jobs annually across the country and $70 billion in additional wages each year.
- And the federal government from receiving over $2.2 trillion in total tax receipts — revenue that would go a long way towards addressing the historic $1.8 trillion deficit that reportedly keeps the President awake at night.
If he is so keen on saving and creating jobs then why did he pass on the opportunity to create 1.2 million jobs? For a man who is desperate for tax revenue, why is he blocking the opportunity to collect it? Does it make sense to outsource drilling for natural gas and oil when it is readily available here domestically? Does refusing to drill domestically actually reduce current energy consumption? NO! Future technology is exactly that, sometime in the future meaning not now applicable.
Furthermore, also affecting employment will be the stiffeling effect of Cap & Trade if implemented. The EIA is forecasting virtual zero growth in the GDP to 2030. That means with a population increase over the same period, unemployment will skyrocket. Now ask yourself how a leader can ignore information and the concerns voiced by people over such analysis? Only an incompetent leader denies the obvious. President Obama is a liberal demagogue; this is why he denies the obvious. Can demagogue be malicious? Sure. Yes, some incompetent leaders do go on to be dictators because they were able to blame shift their failures on to others. But before we label President Obama as someone who aspires to be a Hugo Chavez wannabe, we need to question his competence and make him answer for his failures starting with his inadequate explanations of the bills before Congress.
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Dan Scott calls himself a “Member of the Global Capitalist Cabal preaching Capitalism and personal responsibility as the economic solution to world poverty.” He is also a member of the 14th Amendment Society — victimhood is a liberal code word for denying the civil rights of others. He is also a proud member of the Global Warming Denier Cabal, insisting that facts not agendas determine the truth.
Dan can be seen on the web at http://www.geocities.com/fightbigotry2002/ as well as http://www.geocities.com/dscott8186/saidwebpage.htm, And can be reached for comments at dscott8186@yahoo.com.
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