Choosing a President
For many years, my position has been that anyone who has the hubris to actually want to be president bad enough to go through what you have to go through in order to get elected is, by definition, unhinged (sorry for tossing around the clinical jargon), and should be prohibited from holding the office.
I mean, think about it. Who has the temerity, to look at themselves in the mirror and with a straight face think to themselves...
"Out of every citizen of this country, I am the smartest, the most experienced, the wisest and the most qualified to be President of the United States of America and the Leader of the Free World. Me. Nobody else. Just me."
That's some fucking ego right there! Those are brass fucking balls (or tits...don't want to be sexist) of Biblical porportions!
I look at myself in the mirror and think
"How the fuck is it possible I lived to be 53 years old? Why am I not dead or in jail? Or dead in jail from a shankin'? How is it possible that I even manage to hold down a steady job and to raise a child?"
Aren't we all filled with self doubt? Don't we all feel like frauds and charlatans, hoping no one finds out what ignorant and incompotent fucktards we are?
You fucking liar! You do too!
Who looks at themselves and thinks "Yeah. I deserve to fly all over the world on Air Force fucking One and have control over the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet. I can totally see myself doing that. I deserve that."
No, there is something wrong with all of these people.
What we need is a lottery made up of a pool of candidates who meet some basic intellectual qualifications. Here are my qualifications:
The first one is non-negotiable. You can't believe in this:
If you are not only CAPABLE of believing that but actually draw strength, solace, inspiration and direction from it, then I want the Secret Service to gun your ass down if you come within 5 fucking miles of the "nuclear football".
Faith is "belief without evidence". I don't want anyone in charge of this country who is able to reach a conclusion and make a decision without good, solid, researched, verifiable evidence.
No "gut feelings" or "I know it in my heart!" or "trust me" in the fucking White House, thank you very much! I want "It's a fact. Here's the proof. Go check it out yourself if you don't believe me. It's all there."
The second qualification is, don't be a dick.
The last is, understand the difference between being a leader and a bully.
That's pretty much it, really. If you can do those three things and meet the constitutional qualifications about age and citizenship, you name goes in the fucking pool, whether you want it to or not.
The President and Vice President would be chosen at random from this pool by drawing names out of a bucket.
Ideally, we would get an executive who, once in the White House, would do as good a job as they are capable of so that they could be released after 4 years and not required to serve ANOTHER 4 years fixing all the shit they broke.
If you research it, this was pretty much George Washington's attitude.
He knew he needed to accept the job. He knew it was the what the country wanted. He knew it was a sacrifice he had to make. But he couldn't wait to be rid of the burden and get back to being a regular citizen.
Harry Truman had the same point of view.
I like to think that this approach is what the Founding Father's had in mind, they just didn't articulate it very fucking well.
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6 comments:
OMG...and you choose to hold up the president who ordered the annihilation of over 200,000 people and thousands more who suffered radiation poisoning! So out of keeping for you I just can't believe it.
I think you did this deliberately to get a rise out of your loyal conservative followers..lol..
No, seriously, I mean even this cold, heartless conservative would have had serious reservations about dropping the big one on hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians even though it meant putting an end to the war.
And you worry about a Christian being president? Well, that's it. You've lost your mind or your mind has lost you or else I must have wandered onto a blog by the same name hijacked by an imposter.
What you've just written is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent writing were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on the internet is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
travel - Truman was the last great, unscripted, authentic president we've had. In that light, he rates right up there with Lincoln.
Both did what they thought was best for the country...advisors and script writers be damned.
"...the annihilation of over 200,000 people and thousands more who suffered radiation poisoning..."?
How many Americans died in the Civil War, on both sides?
At least 618,000 Americans died in the Civil War, and some experts say the toll reached 700,000. The number that is most often quoted is 620,000.
The 200,000 dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the innocent victims of their own government's bad decisions carried out in December of 1941.
A perfect example of why national leaders need to be careful before attacking other countries. You can't predict the outcome of your actions.
bull e. vard - Can you be more specific and support your position with actual facts in the place of rhetoric and vitriol? Because if you can't, we should just say fuck it and have lunch at Bryant's again because that was good!
Don't completely invalidate gut and intuition.
I've saved a couple of lives following 'a vibe', and it's been right so often I've learned to not just listen to it, but trust it.
And I do think the total disqualification of a candidate on religious grounds is hovering awfully near the 'bullshit' line, but I know you wouldn't have it any other way. It's bullshit, but in this, at least, it's consistent bullshit :)
Love ya
mean it
satyavati - I'd totally trust your intuition if I were in your care.
But I don't want anyone in charge of the largest and most powerful military force the world has ever known "following a vibe".
I want them to be absolutely, positively sure that they have the facts on their side before sending soldiers off to fight and die.
And thank you.
I liked the part about not being a dick. I also agree that many people have no idea what "leadership" really entails.
As for the religion thing, singling out Christianity is unfair. I know we have a lot of politicians who have trouble with the line between church and state because of their strong faith, but I gotta call BS on this one. If you restrict 1 religion from serving, you have to restrict anybody with any religious affiliation from serving. Which means the pool of candidates will be excruciatingly small. Oh, and lets not forget some people will lie.
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