February 5, 2025 – Well, that didn’t take long!!! Some of Trump’s damage to America is obvious – other damage will take more time.
*** Again – remember – YOU are using as principles of evaluation – THE reasons why the Founding Fathers [no “Founding Mothers! – another story!] created the USA – most especially those magic words; “..promote the general Welfare..” – as in: did ANYTHING Trump decreed in his first weeks benefit ALL Americans? – in REALITY, not rhetoric?
We start with “The Six Principles of Stupidity” [David Brooks; 2/2/25; New York Times]: “Lat week the Chinese made incredible gains in artificial intelligence and the Americans made incredible gains in human stupidity. I’m sorry, but I look at the Trump administration’s behavior over the last week and the only word that accurately describes it is: stupid.”…….
“I define stupidity as behaving in a way that ignores this question: What would happen next?….The administration produced volleys of stupidity last week.”…….
“This Trump policy was like trying to cure acne with decapitation.”……..
“And this is my big prediction for this administration: It will churn out a steady stream of stupid policies, and when the consequences of those policies begin to hit Trump’s approval rating, he will flip-flop, diminish, or abandon those policies.”….
The Six Stupidity Principles:
#1. “Ideology produces disagreement, but stupidity produces befuddlement…That is what happens when a government freezes roughly $3 trillion in spending with a two-page memo that reads like it was written by an intern.”……
#2 “Stupidity often inheres in organizations, not individuals..an organization in which one man has all the power and everybody else has to flatter his preconceptions.”……
#3 “People who behave stupidly are more dangerous than people who behave maliciously. Evil people at least have some accurate sense of their own self-interest, which might restrain them. Stupidity dares greatly!”…
#4 “People who behave stupidly are unaware of the stupidity of their actions…incompetent people don’t have the skills to recognize their own incompetence.”…
#5 “Stupidity is nearly impossible to oppose..Because stupid actions do not make sense, they invariably come as a surprise…Counter evidence is brushed aside. Facts are deemed irrelevant.”….
#6. “THe opposite of stupidity is not intelligence, it’s rationality..the capacity to make decisions that help people achieve their objectives. People in the grip of the populist mind-set trend to be contemptuous of experience, prudence, and expertise…this can make some populists willing to believe anything – conspiracy theories, folk tales, and internet legends..”
***Read, then re-read his article in full. Then THINK. Ask QUESTIONS. Research WHY Brooks said these things. Return to the Founders – students of history, sons of The Age of Enlightenment,” critics of corruption, students of WHY past democracies failed.
The Founders built America on the ASSUMPTION people would act rationally, that citizens would seek out fats and act on them. The Bill of Rights has protections for speech, press, assembly, petition BECAUSE they wanted a “virtuous” government and a “virtuous” public.
Jefferson and Washington were “scientific” farmers. Franklin was honored as a man of science. Washington inoculated his Revolutionary War soldiers against small pox. America’s first subscription library was begun by Franklin and friends in 1731 – its success led to other colonial libraries.
*** “Only the wise, and never the fools, can distinguish between faults and good qualities; between the right and wrong time to do something; between what is skillful and what is not.” [“The Just King”; Jamgon Mipham]
With Justice For All 