This morning I find myself at a food distributorship outside of Syracuse New York.
If snails were to design a distribution center, this place would undoubtedly be too fast for them. Not for many other humans, though.
[1]
Nothing against the people that work here, but against the people who designed the system that they work in. It can be best described by what I call the alligator theory. That being when you’re up to your backside in alligators it’s difficult to remember your original objective was to drain the swamp. Like any large organization, filled with regulations, but people are so busy dealing with regulations, that they can’t actually move freight.
To that point, I’d like you to check out Glenn Reynolds column, the other day. Glenn says “You’re most likely breaking the law right now.” [2]
For those who have been reading along, I made a comment about laws we don’t know we’re breaking a couple of weeks ago, I still haven’t heard how that one came out, exactly, though I gather that the company paid off.
Interestingly enough, the place where that driver was delivering, is where I’m sitting as I write this.
What Reynolds describes, is what happens when you make government “cool”. Wasn’t that one of Mr Obama’s objectives? Now that we have a direct result, maybe we can learn from that mistake, and reverse course. That’s only going to happen if the GOP decides to nominate somebody who understands that the government is not the solution, but as Reagan said, government is the problem.
I was once asked by a reader why drivers tend to be so very anti-government. Without even pausing for breath, my response was because they’re the ones that deal with it most often.
Described another way, the situation in terms of governments can be described as the government instilling fear in the people. They are afraid to move, to do what people do normally, for fear of running afoul of some government regulation or other. Is there any way such a situation cannot be described as a lack of freedom, and the lack of progress?
I believe it was Jefferson who suggested that when people fear the government there is tyranny and when the government fears the people there is freedom. Which of those two situations would you say we have now?
Meanwhile, the Iranian peace deal has predictably fallen apart. Iran has refused to give up its nuclear material, and we have at least one general and record saying that the destruction of Israel is non-negotiable.
At some point in the distant future, somebody, somewhere, will be able to explain to me perhaps the reason Obama has been playing this game. They may even be able to give me a reason that involves actual peace, but, I doubt it.
I doubt that there was anybody in this administration who wasn’t smart enough to recognize that the Iranian wouldn’t change their direction at the negotiation table. As I suggested repeatedly negotiated peace never works. Not for long, anyway. And with these animals not at all.
History has shown very clearly the path to take. Let’s consider a couple of high points. We removed Saddam Hussein, we removed Moammar Qaddafi we remove the Shah of Iran, why again? Because they were brutal dictators and we freedom-loving people don’t like brutal dictators.
Our current dealings with Iran, the Palestinians, and so on suggest however that brutality and naked aggression is all that some people… Some cultures… understand.
[3]
How is it that clear mindedness and thinking unadulterated by emotion, so completely escaped us in the West?
If a western style democracy had a hope in hell of succeeding anywhere in the Middle East it was going to be in Iraq, and that was going to be a decade-long situation. But because the current resident of the White House gave all that up, and all the blood that was spilled to that end, when he prematurely pulled us off the plan supposedly for the benefit of his own political future we are now in a much more volatile situation. Exactly the opposite of his stated purpose, granted, but it was widely predicted. He didn’t listen.
The bumbling of this administration has now pushed us into a situation where military action is the only solution. Even absent Iran getting nuclear capability, that would be happening within the next decade. But because of the bumbling of this administration, our opponent will be having and using nuclear weapons.
Welcome to hope and change.
And down the road I go. See you tomorrow. Maybe.