"I've heard many times that although democracy is an imperfect system, we somehow always muddle through. The message I want to give you, after long and hard reflection, is that I'm very much afraid it is no longer possible to muddle through. The issues we deal with do not lend themselves to that kind of treatment. Therefore, I conclude that our democracy must grow up. I'm not going to give you a magic recipe on how that will happen—I wish I had one—but I offer some thoughts that I hope will stimulate your thinking.
What's principally lacking on the federal scene, it seems to me, is the existence of respected, nonpartisan, interdisciplinary teams that could at least tell us what is possible and something about the pluses and minuses of different solutions. Take energy, for instance. What I would love to see established, with the National Academies or any other mechanism to confer respectability, is a team that will ... say, 'Okay, there are lots of suggestions around, and most of them won't work. But here are six different plans, any one of which is possible. We'll tell you what each one costs, what's good about it, what's bad about it, how dangerous it is, and what its uncertainties are.' At least each option would be a well-integrated, clearly thought-out plan. I do not trust democracy to try to put together such a plan by having each committee of Congress choose one piece of it. Suppose Congress designed an airplane, with each committee designing one component and an eleventh-hour conference committee deciding how the pieces should be put together. Would you fly on that airplane? I am telling you we are flying on an energy plan, an inflation plan, and so on that are being put together in exactly that way.
Unfortunately the original 1980 article that this was excerpted from is paywalled.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 02 2017, @06:18AM
The right found its balls all right; they're spread out on the right's collective face, as the right cracks its own ribcage to bend over far enough to deepthroat itself.
Christ, you never mentally made it out of junior high's locker rooms, did you? Sit down and shut the fuck up and let actual rational adults handle this. You're insane, not just an asshole like Uzzard but actually insane. We've seen what your way of doing things leads to. You try to dress it up with big words and witty retorts and pseudo-profound quotes, but your facade cracks every few posts and we get a glimpse of the wild-eyed lava-faced maniac under the surface.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 02 2017, @04:15PM
Someone predicted that he's a Russian shill, wouldn't be too surprising to me. His posts support the worst ideas and would likely lead to civil war. Sounds pretty good to a Russian spook I'm sure.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 02 2017, @10:45PM
He hasn't got the intelligence or the coherence. No, this is one of our good ol' boys, probably a bit inbred and definitely a bit nuts.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...