we are the whirled

So, yes, I am liberal, but not pro-democrat. I am liberal in standing up for a Constitutional Republic in which citizens determine their destiny in open, honest, and often contentious discussion with one another. I would be happy living under Repubs who stood up for that or Dems. I find neither do. Both are in the game of raising money from corporations and wealthy people and providing them with return on political investment - a despicable phrase. To do so they convert cash to votes via propaganda produced by think thank bs artists. - Phil at Gifthub

Bruce Schneier points to an article on airline security by David Mackett, the president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance. Why are our security czars an array of duplicitous cronies, and not competent, qualified experts? Are we safer with Michael “I think with my intestines” Chertoff and Heckuva Job Brownie than we would be with Schneier and Mackett? - AKMA

We wouldn’t be where we presently find ourselves — mired in a pointless foreign war, looking down the barrel of undisguised executive despotism, and teetering on the precipice of national insolvency — were it not for the capacity of Americans to believe passionately in things that are patently untrue. Arcadia via Gifthub.

The above offer crucial thinking about how the intermediating system of broadcast-media-democracy is strongly biased to favor a presumption of rational agency. That is, we elect a president. His team proceeds to dismantle entire departments of government and to introduce their own intermediaries between every node on every executive network. A mass substitution of enslaved mirrors for functional infrastructure ensues. In a while, he finds "cause" for attacking another country. At every point along the way, he and his circlejerk are presumed to be compos mentium.

But this seems an awfully careless presumption. It's a fair (and balanced) estimate that a certain number of the crowned heads, potentates, poobahs, queens, commanders, czars, gerents, khans, maharajahs, monarchs, overlords, overseers, presidents, generals, tycoons, CEOs, pashas, mikados, sovereigns, chairmen of the board, bishops, lieges, tycoons, sultans, swaggerers, tyrants, dynasts, presidents, moguls, shahs, satraps, martinets, caliphs, counts, barons, Big Shots, sachems, Gippers, rajahs, boss men, kingpins, magnates and empresses of history were, if not full-throttle psychotic, then garden-variety batshit lunatics. Indeed, it would seem, from a certain admittedly flyblown sampling of human history to be sure, that the preponderance of insect lords would not be allowed in most contemporary daycares.

Then why is there no check in our system for making sure the people we "choose" to preside over our welfare are convincingly sane, rational dudes? Rationality might not be all that relevant to some modes of governance, but it would seem essential for a democracy. Yet there are no constitutional controls, no checks, no mechanism for monitoring the alleged presidential mind. Mere insanity is insufficient to impeach. Seems kinda nuts.