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That "Oh, it's Atlas Shrugged" Feeling

Posted by $ Abaco 10 years, 4 months ago to News
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Has it always been this way? I can't imagine it has. As I see stories of the water in Flint, the massive gas leak in SoCal, the water contamination in Sacramento, the Navy boat that breaks down and gets captured by the Iranians, etc...I find that I just say, "Oh yeah, right out of Atlas Shrugged." When I actually study the details of some of these follies (in my engineering work) I see a commonality. There's always just a long line of errors building up to the disaster. I look at it and think, "How can there have been nobody who said, 'Hey...wait a minute.'" Then, often it's that there is a total abandonment of engineering principles. That troubles me a lot. So many of these things are not complicated to prevent. Our society is going through a very strange phase where engineering is ignored, citizens put in harms way by bureaucrats who don't seem to really care. The head water guy here in Sacramento was asked on the news, basically, "Why did you let poison water flow out to the population for so long?" With a perfectly straight face he says, "To save money." But, it actually cost more to poison the water, vs. the previous method.

WTH is going on?

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  • Posted by Bethesda-gal 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The vast difference is the degree to which any candidate advocates for socially supported programs. If you don't see the difference between Sanders and all of the GOP candidates you arent paying enough attention. The pithy saying applies in this instance: Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good.
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  • Posted by Bethesda-gal 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I assume specifically you're referring to the group of almost 40 freshmen congressmen, including my favorites - Dave Bratt from VA, Joni Ernst from IA and Mia Love from UT. What you forget is they are only 40 out of 435. And Obama does still have veto power and even the FULL Republican majority is NOT a veto-proof majority. So what do you suggest they do ????
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  • Posted by jabuttrick 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I don't see the "vast differences" on a fundamental level. Clinton, Sanders, Trump and Cruz, for instance, all support the draft, the income tax, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, undeclared wars, government education, tariffs, etc. In short, they are all statists who support the welfare/warfare state. And their shared political philosophy is collectivism.
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  • Posted by cjferraris 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    What I'm referring to is that the Repubs were voted in after years of having Dems shove things down the people's throat that they didn't want. Have they done anything to fix it? And blaming Obama's veto threats for not doing things is no longer an excuse. Is it going to be any better if (God forbid) another Dem wins the WH again? The Repubs we send to DC have to realize that they are sent there by the will of the people and had better start acting like it.
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  • Posted by johnpe1 10 years, 4 months ago
    groupthink. . group delusion. . there's never enough time
    or money to do it right, but there is always enough to
    do it over. . and over. . and over. . horribly wasteful. -- j
    .
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  • Posted by jabuttrick 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You are correct to identify gerrymandering as an enormous problem. Together with winner take all elections and ballot access restrictions we are politically suffocating.
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  • Posted by Blanco 10 years, 4 months ago
    Yes, Republicans generally represent a viewpoint that is closer to Libertarianism than do Democrats. That's why I usually vote Republican. The sad truth is that if Republicans tried to run on a more Libertarian platform, they would very probably not be elected. Then we'd be in even more trouble.
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  • Posted by Bethesda-gal 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I disagree. I think there are vast differences. Rep strive for equal opportunity, Dems strive for equal outcomes.
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  • Posted by cjferraris 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The problem is that there is very little difference between the Dems and the Repubs any longer. Both parties have turned into the ruling class and we're their subjects.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    So have I (engineer butting heads with management). I have stories that, honestly, I should put in a book someday.
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  • Posted by teri-amborn 10 years, 4 months ago
    I have been observing the same patterns in humans and particularly government for a very long time.

    It seems to me that they follow the logical fallacy that money is a floating abstraction devoid of any relationship to people hence the decisions that government makes are in no way attached to helping citizens become "more" so that the tax base is increased.

    In addition, the ability to think "globally" is inhibited by such lack of conceptualization which leads to a "follow my rules" mentality and lack of personal accountability in every phase of planning and implementation.

    My husband works in engineering and butts heads with mangement quite often when dealing with such issues as "seeing things big-picture" and visualizing the end from the beginning.
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  • Posted by $ TomB666 10 years, 4 months ago
    People are being promoted to positions of authority based not on competence, but by being the PC candidate. This is as Rand forecast.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 10 years, 4 months ago
    Two ways your description of events happen.
    1. We did what we thought was right, and we didn't mean for it to happen like this.
    2. We want to bring the country to its knees so we can take over.
    #1 is the road to Hell.
    #2 Hell is already here.
    It doesn't matter which you think it is. The end is the same. The dissolution of a free society.
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  • Posted by wiggys 10 years, 4 months ago
    All this stuff has been going on since before i was born (1941) and fortunately or maybe not Ayn Rand identified it.Would we have been better off with out her? I think not! So now we know what is going on and why.Will someone who we pay with our tax dollars ever step up and say to his superior you are wrong or will he sheepishly cower in a corner. A friend of mine told me of a guy he knows who works for the fbi or some such government police department who readily admitted he detests some of the things he has to do because he needs the money to support 3 children in college. I see in the textile business what trash the government labs authorize for use in garments for soldiers, and they at the labs know the stuff doesn't work. But here too no one will step to the plate and say something, If citizens civilian or military die its collateral damage.
    So abaco it has been going on since you were born.
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  • Posted by Bethesda-gal 10 years, 4 months ago
    IMHO, I view the increasingly likely downfall of the U.S. as the fault of gerrymandering. Let me explain. I believe that with voting districts getting more and more concentrated in one-party rule we ( the citizen) do not have both political parties competing for our vote by displaying exemplary performance for the benefit of the public, nor do we have vompeting political parties being watchdogs of each other. Thus you get Flint ( my understanding is the sole Republican in the entire scenario is the gov. All others are Dems.) where the same Democrats will likely be re-elected, or at the most, other Democrats will replace them. With no improvement in oversight or competition. But BOTH political parties do it ( support gerrymandering) b/c it reduces the races they need to work hard to defend. IMO, only citizens organizing, With the good fortune of getting a good candidate, (like we thankfully got for Republican gov here in Maryland - one of the most liberal states in the country) can this be turned around. Its a longshot, but its all we've got.
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  • Posted by ewv 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Later exemplified by the space shuttle disaster in particular. What were they counting on?
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 10 years, 4 months ago
    Sorry for the misspelling. I hadn't had my coffee yet...
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 10 years, 4 months ago
    It makes me want to re-read the part in Atlas Shrugged where they run the train into the tunnel and kill a bunch of people. I remember it following this pattern of technical advice being ignored, bad people forcing their authority, lack of accountability...
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  • Posted by richrobinson 10 years, 4 months ago
    Agreed. I would add the economy. The President and Democratic candidates are saying all is well but we know that isn't true.
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