Political Points
- Points I try to remember when analyzing issues. I will be talking about each of these in more detail in the future. Please feel free to add your own.
- The beginning of wisdom is calling things by their correct names.
- Truth sets us free, lies are subtle and comfortable chains.
- Life isn't one dimensional. That includes politics and solutions.
- The government is not the village (or city, or county or society).
- The government is not your daddy (or mother or rich uncle).
- Government was invented by humans to solve some very specific, basic problems.
- Government is not the solution to every new problem.
- One size never fits all.
- When we forget why we do something, we use tradition as an excuse.
- Problems are solved faster, easier, cheaper and with less pain when government involvement is minimized.
- Government changes lag societies changes.
- Governments do most things poorly, so should be limited to those functions for which it was invented.
- All jobs are not equal.
- Fairness is an invented concept. It rarely occurs in nature.
- It is easy to confuse equality and identity. Things that are equal are seldom identical.
- If you keep doing what you've been doing, don't be surprised at what you get.
- Success is measured at the edge.
- Blindly adding money or technology to a problem doesn't fix it.
- There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
- I know of nothing more destructive than good intentions.
- Life is not a Zero-sum game.
I believe I would have put #21, life is not a zero sum game, first.
ReplyDeleteI heard an economist for the Economic Policy Research Institute rattling on about the increaing divide in "economic equality", whatever that is, on NPR. His thesis was basically that Bill Gates has made the rest of us poorer by becoming fabulously wealthy. As economists go, he wasn't bad, he had correctly predicted 6 of the last three recessions
Fault here is that one cannot get any poorer than dead slap broke, but there is no limit on upward migration through the economic quintiles.
Calling things by their correct names is huge. Call it spin or framing, if one controls the language of a debate, one controls the debate itself.
As to fairness, every time I hear someone utter the phrase "it ain't fair", I ask to see at least a copy of their contract: you know, the one you got when you were born stating "life will be fair". Must have lost my copy of mine. Always wanted to see one, maybe I could steal the contract language.