Monday, November 16, 2015

skip the title

"It’s time for a competent and honest adult of either gender to be president."
"The presidency is a job that requires action. When those actions are performed ineptly or dishonestly, bad things happen. The president is not a figurehead or a cheerleader. He (or she) has to do things. And now, after a long succession of presidents who immensely expanded the powers of the executive branch, it’s also important for the president to know when not to do things.

In the end, what matters is what has been done or not done, and for what reason those things were done or not done. If bad things were done for bad reasons, it’s not going to matter, in any practical sense, whether they were done by a man, a woman, a transgender eunuch, a goat, a walnut, or a dyslexic alien from planet Xenu.

Barack Obama just illustrated this dynamic quite explicitly, which was very helpful of him.

We were told it was “time” for a black president, and many black people voted for him for that reason alone. But then their median household incomes dropped precipitously, their unemployment rate didn’t, and their poverty rate went higher. I think they would agree that it isn’t, in fact, a better sort of poverty or a more palatable sort of unemployment because it happened under the reign of a black man. It still sucks, frankly. Just like it did before, or worse.

As it turns out, we elect presidents to get results, not to be demographical mascots. And if they don’t get results, or if the results are poor, their physical characteristics will not blunt the impact nor dull the sting of their monumental failures.

So, “time for a woman”? What does that mean? Would you apply it to any other area of your life? Do you have a checklist on your fridge of the races and genders of the plumbers, electricians, pediatricians, landscapers, and dermatologists you’ve used over the years, so that when you need one you can make a selection based on a rotation of sexual organs and pigment shades? “Hmmm. Need someone to come install wiring in our new addition. Whose turn is it? Let’s see, looks like it’s time for a Chinese person with a penis.”

Is that how you conduct yourself in your daily life? Of course not. You might want universities to admit people and countries to elect people based on affirmative action, but in your actual life, when push comes to shove, you always go with whoever you think will do the job and do it well, don’t you?"
...and his second point is even better.

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