They Don't Know

Politicians don't know anything.

I'm serious.

Do people seriously, truly, honestly, logically believe, say, President Obama understands economics, the military, climatology, and education in any deep way? Heck, people in those specialities barely know anything. He gets informed and then makes a decision not based on any real solid understanding of each discipline but by his personal ideological outlook on life. When you vote, you vote for the outlook; not the knowledge.

It was well known the guy was a total liberal. What did people, especially Independents, expect? That he was somehow going to magically become "pragmatic?" We're so delusional.

We're fools to believe a politician actually has, for instance, any real impact on "creating jobs." He doesn't know and if he implements a policy and it works, it's not because he knew, it means he got lucky. What it further means is people then base models on this outcomes to "empirically" prove this is how things should be done (from now on); and if it doesn't (as it usually does) then you just refute, tell people to hang on, say things like we weren't aggressive enough, or blame something else.

In Quebec, I like to pick on education as proof we know nothing. Their intervention has led to the slow degredation of the quality of our schools. Does a minister, who ran a grocery strore, or is a lawyer, really know the needs of kids and teachers? Do they understand the impact of their decisions? Not unless they sit their asses down in a classroom for an entire year they don't. If the state wants to maintain its hard grip on education the least they can do is have a teacher as a minister every time.

On a side note, education is indeed a two-way street. Parents have abandoned their responsibilities thinking the state can "handle" things. The state, for its part, got too involved to the point of playing the part of an enabler.

Long story short:

It's all bull shit.

Or as Bugs Bunny says, it's a miragee.

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A few years ago I wrote a post arguing that one branch of experts I considered to possess a deep knowledge of life (history, politics, culture, strategy etc.), weren't CEO's or politicians or any other person you care to add but military generals. If you ever have a conversation with one you'd know what I mean. It's almost as if they're born to cut through all the bull shit and get to the heart of matter.

Some of the most interesting thoughts and interpretations about Arab culture since 2003 come from military minds. Not journalists or politicians.