Feeble

It's been several cycles since I watched a Presidential debate.  The first of 2024 found its way to my Daily Task List.  I know who will get my vote based on my vision, my sense of what America has stood for at its best, who elevates that and who jeopardizes that.  No preference issue for me at all.  We are all familiar with the options, a decent but doddering man against another more blustery type who did his best to convince us that he will execute the evil necessary to keep the world safe on our behalf.  One frail, the other dependent on misrepresentation reinforced with bluster.  One highly dependent on counsel of wise advisors, the other who takes pride in who he fired.  One looking for consensus, the other identifying vulnerabilities to exploit.  While I look at the two candidates, knowing I must select one, I find myself relating this very binary choice to what I either am like, or wish I were like.

Without getting into a discussion of whether my assets are Gifts from God or whether generated by my own efforts or by my own good fortune, they remain my personal strengths.  Evidence suggests I am smart, respectfully challenging, and inquisitive.  Those were gifts, or inheritances of some type.  I can see though bluster, challenge the dubious as it arises, figure out when I am being Rafshooned, as one of the debaters set as the basis of his presentation.  I self-assess as kind, or at least value kindness even when I fall short.  Deciding when an aim is important enough to engage in a modicum of cruelty has challenged thinkers for millennia.  Hamas seems to think achieving their agenda justifies what they do to bring it about.  So did many more benevolent leaders through history.  Sometimes somebody has to do the things others are unwilling to do.  I do not think separating families at America's Southern Border is one of these things.  Telling people who had pinned their hopes on resettling in America that there are other people ahead of them in line might be.  

One candidate proudly flaunted how many people he had fired for not being up to the task.  The other failed to challenge him on his flawed judgment making so many inept appointments.  We also have a Peter Principle where people get appointed and then promoted until they can no longer function at their assigned level.  Then they stay there.  As the current President essentially laid an egg, in Hollywood lingo, he may be America's most glaring example of what Prof. Peter tried to convey.  He did not seem up to the task, yet having somebody else more capable take over comes with an element of risk, not the least being that the one who follows will be less capable.

There aren't a lot of options.  Maybe revoke the Drivers License from one who shouldn't have it, whether by frailty of one candidate or recklessness of the other.

Faced with no very good options, I default to what has been my core.  Do things that make sense.  Be a trustworthy, honorable person. Seek kindness.  The two men on the screen last night are not equal on these.  There is some safety net to frailty for sure.  However, there exists no an anti-dote to authority with distorted reasoning or character.  I'll cast America's lot with feeble and its safety nets.