[conspire] (forw) Re: (forw) Not quite getting it

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Texx:

> I pondered Ricks post for a few days.
> Smart people would look at those delays and scream "You IDIOTS!".
> Why would these governors do something so stupid?

Your point is well taken, that governors, like all of our officials,
have no real choice but to be sensitive to public opinion.

There's a story that gets told about FDR, possibly apocryphal.  Here's
the variant that ran in SFGate, a while back:

  Harry Belafonte recalled in an interview with Tavis Smiley recently a
  story he was told by Eleanor Roosevelt. She related a public event when
  her husband, FDR, introduced Randolph and asked him, Belafonte recalled,
  "what he thought of the nation, what he thought of the plight of the
  Negro people and what did he think ... where the nation was headed."
  Continuing the story, Belafonte recounted what FDR replied upon hearing
  Randolph's remarks: "You know, Mr. Randolph, I've heard everything
  you've said tonight, and I couldn't agree with you more. I agree with
  everything that you've said, including my capacity to be able to right
  many of these wrongs and to use my power and the bully pulpit. ... But I
  would ask one thing of you, Mr. Randolph, and that is go out and make me
  do it."

The point of the anecdote is that any official has a limited store of 
persuasive ability and political capital to spend.  Therefore, the best
course of action for citizens who want the official to take a particular
stance that requires use of those limited resources is to build demand
for it, making the official's path more feasible.

> Its interesting to watch the Cretin in chief claiming that we are going to
> open everything back up in 2 weeks and the governors who
> know better who probably wont go along with it.
> Im expecting some sort of a tantrum in 2 weeks when the country does NOT
> reopen.

{Shrug}  If there's anything this crisis has made clear to an
unprecedented number of Americans, it's that the Toddler is in general
best ignored.  Fortunately, our federal framework means he has very
little leverage in strongarming states whose governments have taken
charge of policy in most areas.


> Im still ready to take my chances with a military coup over what we have.

It's a lot easier and much less bloody to just classify the current junta^W
regime as damage and route around it.  

(This time, I'll correctly attribute the original of that saying to John
Gilmore, EFF co-founder, quoted in _Time_ magazine in late 1993 as
saying 'The Net treats censorship as a defect, and routes around it.')

-- 
Cheers,                                "Rand Paul being patient zero for a Senate 
Rick Moen                               viral outbreak is a sign of a writers' room 
rick at linuxmafia.com                     dropping too much acid, late in the season."
McQ! (4x80)                                           -- @owillis (Oliver Willis)