[PLUG-TALK] Surveillance, elections, media, and blackmail

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Thu Jul 25 17:45:04 UTC 2013


On Thu, 25 Jul 2013, Keith Lofstrom wrote:

> Case in point: there is big kerfuffle about New York politician Anthony
> Weiner, who sent sexually explicit pictures to women following his twitter
> posts. Okay, that was crazy stupid.

   He's a politician; ergo, he has a huge ego and thinks he's better than
the rest of us. Nothing new here. Only a couple of states have 'none of the
above' as options on their ballots; unfortunately, that choice is not
counted so it is a meaningless gesture. If NOTA received the most votes then
a new herd of candidates should be proposed and the election redone.
Unfortunately, it most likely would make no difference. There's a certain
personality willing, even eager, to run for elected office and the rest of
us are stuck with 'em.

> But anyone who does lots of things does lots of things wrong. The lack of
> inhibition that makes a person foolhardy enough to start a business or run
> for office or achieve some other large goal spills over into other parts
> of their lives. Passionate people aren't robots, and those who achieve
> great things make correspondingly great mistakes.

   This is a gross generalization that I would not expect from you, Keith.
While most of us do things wrong, those are not necessarily wrong things,
and most of the errors do no major harm. At least, not to others or to
society at large.

   What's foolhardy about starting a business? In today's economy a strong
argument can be made that it's the most rational choice for many people,
particularly those of a certain age.

   Not everyone who achieves great things makes great mistakes. The only
valid conclusion from generalizations is that they're always wrong.

Rich




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