Obama so far: Weak and NaiveFollow

It wasn't, but your confusion is understandable.

Hate to interrupt this little daisy chain here, but I'm curious about your opinions on something. The upper levels of our government are filled with businessmen and lawyers. To memory, a good half of US presidents have been lawyers. I can't be the only person to find it bothersome that the people ostensibly chosen to lead us come from careers in which some of the main components are rhetoric and manipulation. If you look at the equivalent leaders of China you'll find that they're mostly scientists.

It would seem to me that this is a substantial problem.

Seems to be increasingly anachronistic, especially the part about upholding the constitution (The semi-sacred status it enjoys among some is something I object to greatly).

The problem to my mind is that these lawyers are legislating things they're completely unfit to. If some of them can't even work a computer properly, how are they going to know what research is worth funding? There are various other examples like that in different fields. A feasible solution is beyond my abilities, but I would advocate massive reform which would have the result of substantial input from the scientific, medical, educational etc communities.

Huh?

Inequality, discrimination?

Are scientists somehow being held back from seeking public office?

He surrounded himself with people smarter than him. Like Barney and Mrs. Beasley.

My congresscritter is a medical doctor. Still licensed and everything, although his practice uses another doctor as its main person now, allowing the congresscritter to just collect payment for owning the practice.

He's also ******* insane and not in a good way and I give his office the finger every time I pass it by. He's a "Good Old Boy" through and through.

I'd rather have a lawyer, honestly.

China allows you to send the military to someone's house and rough them up. The US system relies on more subtle, lawyerly, persuasion.


Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Gonzales & Brown? All true luminaries

At least it would cut down in red-tape.

I don't see how a tyrannical government would cause more scientists to rise to prominence. It's possible to maintain a system of legalism without lawyers filling the majority of positions. This might be a more important point if the USG was actually concerned with following the law, or the system of legalism wasn't essentially used the same way as military force in some instances.

Fair enough. I guess my overall point is that we're too set in habit and tradition. I don't see much harm in trying out drastically new things.

I was reading Homage To Catalonia the other day and the various political ideologies and how they were all considered reasonably impressed me. Some people say the the US is essentially run under a one party system, due to the very little difference between the two parties relative to the rest of the world. I can't really find much about that to dispute. It bothers me that alternative political ideologies are flatly dismissed as lunacy or the like by the majority of people. The status quo may have brought us to the status of being a world power, but that's quite distinct from benefit to the populace.

I guess this is kind of a tangent.

If they could prove they were right, maybe people should do what they say?

What could you possibly stand to gain by being deliberately wrong?