This is the most confounding administration I have ever seen. Every indication leads to the conclusion that it's intentionally committed to the destruction of the remnants of Constitutional order that still flutter like tattered shreds from the bent and corroded flag pole of our body politic.
It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that nothing this administration has done has been to the benefit of the country, while nearly everything it has done has been to its detriment. Granted, some interest group, grievance mob or financial concern has benefited greatly from this or that particular policy. But it is clear that the General Welfare has suffered and continues to do so.
Such a perfect record of perfidy cannot be unintentional, can it?
But can we be sure that the administration is guilty of deceitfulness; untrustworthiness.
I feel like we can.
But, is it possible that this is The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight on a gargantuan, whole-of-government level?
Before we leap on the crazy train of conspiracy theory, we should at least try to eliminate any more likely possibilities.
My first inclination is to assign the mal-government of the current regime to a gargantuan case of Groupthink among the Progressive/Liberal/Leftist "elite" operating in this country.
According to the Oregon State University web site on the subject, it appears so:
Groupthink occurs when a homogenous highly cohesive group is so concerned with maintaining unanimity that they fail to evaluate all their alternatives and options. Groupthink members see themselves as part of an in-group working against an outgroup opposed to their goals.
The symptoms are familiar to anyone following the antics of the current administration and its fellow travelers:
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink.
Type I: Overestimations of the group — its power and morality
Type II: Closed-mindedness
Type III: Pressures toward uniformity
And the outcomes also seem to fit Professor Irving Janis' observations:
Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision-making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking
That's my working hypothesis. But there is another possibility: Stupidity.
Hanlon's Razor posits: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Are we experiencing massive stupidity at a cost of $1.1T per year in direct costs and who knows how much in indirect costs? But isn't the Administration filled with Distinguished Harvard graduates and high ranking government officials?
Yeah, so what? Not like a Harvard education equips them to identify the capital of Canada, or anything like that. The list of Harvard graduates also includes, Enron crook Jeffrey Skilling, a geneticist and child molester named W. French Anderson, and Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), who was raided by the FBI in August and found to have $90,000 hidden in his freezer and the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, Class of 1962.
No, I'm afraid we have to seriously consider near universal stupidity within the Obama administration and among Progressive/Liberal/Leftists in general before we can leap to any conspiracy theories.
After all, "Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."
It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that nothing this administration has done has been to the benefit of the country, while nearly everything it has done has been to its detriment. Granted, some interest group, grievance mob or financial concern has benefited greatly from this or that particular policy. But it is clear that the General Welfare has suffered and continues to do so.
Such a perfect record of perfidy cannot be unintentional, can it?
But can we be sure that the administration is guilty of deceitfulness; untrustworthiness.
| synonyms: | treachery, duplicity, deceit, deceitfulness, disloyalty, infidelity,faithlessness, unfaithfulness, betrayal, treason, double-dealing,untrustworthiness, breach of trust; |
I feel like we can.
But, is it possible that this is The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight on a gargantuan, whole-of-government level?
Before we leap on the crazy train of conspiracy theory, we should at least try to eliminate any more likely possibilities.
My first inclination is to assign the mal-government of the current regime to a gargantuan case of Groupthink among the Progressive/Liberal/Leftist "elite" operating in this country.
According to the Oregon State University web site on the subject, it appears so:
Groupthink occurs when a homogenous highly cohesive group is so concerned with maintaining unanimity that they fail to evaluate all their alternatives and options. Groupthink members see themselves as part of an in-group working against an outgroup opposed to their goals.
The symptoms are familiar to anyone following the antics of the current administration and its fellow travelers:
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink.
Type I: Overestimations of the group — its power and morality
- Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
- Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
Type II: Closed-mindedness
- Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions.
- Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, impotent, or stupid.
Type III: Pressures toward uniformity
- Self-censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
- Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
- Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of "disloyalty"
- Mind guards— self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
And the outcomes also seem to fit Professor Irving Janis' observations:
Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision-making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking
- Incomplete survey of alternatives
- Incomplete survey of objectives
- Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
- Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives
- Poor information search
- Selection bias in collecting information
- Failure to work out contingency plans.
That's my working hypothesis. But there is another possibility: Stupidity.
Hanlon's Razor posits: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Are we experiencing massive stupidity at a cost of $1.1T per year in direct costs and who knows how much in indirect costs? But isn't the Administration filled with Distinguished Harvard graduates and high ranking government officials?
Yeah, so what? Not like a Harvard education equips them to identify the capital of Canada, or anything like that. The list of Harvard graduates also includes, Enron crook Jeffrey Skilling, a geneticist and child molester named W. French Anderson, and Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), who was raided by the FBI in August and found to have $90,000 hidden in his freezer and the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, Class of 1962.
No, I'm afraid we have to seriously consider near universal stupidity within the Obama administration and among Progressive/Liberal/Leftists in general before we can leap to any conspiracy theories.
After all, "Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."
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