Good questions. I’ll try to answer thoughtfully and honestly.
No, I don’t think my instincts would do better than the professionals; I’m just disappointed that the professionals seem not to have based their judgments on evidence, but rather on instincts only slightly more well informed than my own.
Do I believe they might have been mistaken rather than dishonest? Well, I quite confidently assume that some were mistaken and some were dishonest. The aspect of the situation which leaves me feeling betrayed is that I voted for Bush in 2000, in part because I was intrigued by his “branding” as “the MBA president”. I expected a manager type to be better at picking staff and at insuring that the numbers get crunched (and get crunched honestly) than brilliant/intuitive types like Bill Clinton. Boy, was I wrong.
In 2004, I held my nose and voted for Kerry. I lost. By 2008, I was so disgusted with the Republicans that I voted against McCain, a man I had always liked. I can’t say that I am happy with the result. The Republican party has now turned completely foul, and to make it worse, looks like it will win big with this new look. Obama, who gave me a lot of hope, has now disappointed me almost as much as Bush did.
Yeah, I know I am sliding into Mind Killer territory here. Sorry. Back to your question: dishonest or mistaken? I think a lot of intelligence people were mistaken. I think Cheney, Rumsfeld, and his neocon staff were dishonest. I think Powell was privately honest but publicly dishonest, because he thought it was his job. I think Bush is so completely Meyers-Briggs NF and so completely not ST, that he probably genuinely doesn’t understand how an honest person like himself could possibly be mistaken.
“Yeah, I know I am sliding into Mind Killer territory here. Sorry.”
Is the Mind Killer policy really policy? If it was, your posts would have been downvoted instantly. Instead, you’ve made a total of 24 karma through 3 posts by “sliding” into this Mind Killer territory.
If there is no enforcement (negative Karma) for a policy, and if anybody can hop in Mind Killer territory without suffering any penalty, then this policy doesn’t exist.
A valid complaint. But notice that the third post, where I was deep in politics, received the least karma. The first got points (I think) primarily by noting that judging a politician’s character is at least as difficult as judging a policy position, and the second got points mostly by noting that arguing the semantics of “WMD” was really going off the rails.
Good questions. I’ll try to answer thoughtfully and honestly.
No, I don’t think my instincts would do better than the professionals; I’m just disappointed that the professionals seem not to have based their judgments on evidence, but rather on instincts only slightly more well informed than my own.
Do I believe they might have been mistaken rather than dishonest? Well, I quite confidently assume that some were mistaken and some were dishonest. The aspect of the situation which leaves me feeling betrayed is that I voted for Bush in 2000, in part because I was intrigued by his “branding” as “the MBA president”. I expected a manager type to be better at picking staff and at insuring that the numbers get crunched (and get crunched honestly) than brilliant/intuitive types like Bill Clinton. Boy, was I wrong.
In 2004, I held my nose and voted for Kerry. I lost. By 2008, I was so disgusted with the Republicans that I voted against McCain, a man I had always liked. I can’t say that I am happy with the result. The Republican party has now turned completely foul, and to make it worse, looks like it will win big with this new look. Obama, who gave me a lot of hope, has now disappointed me almost as much as Bush did.
Yeah, I know I am sliding into Mind Killer territory here. Sorry. Back to your question: dishonest or mistaken? I think a lot of intelligence people were mistaken. I think Cheney, Rumsfeld, and his neocon staff were dishonest. I think Powell was privately honest but publicly dishonest, because he thought it was his job. I think Bush is so completely Meyers-Briggs NF and so completely not ST, that he probably genuinely doesn’t understand how an honest person like himself could possibly be mistaken.
“Yeah, I know I am sliding into Mind Killer territory here. Sorry.”
Is the Mind Killer policy really policy? If it was, your posts would have been downvoted instantly. Instead, you’ve made a total of 24 karma through 3 posts by “sliding” into this Mind Killer territory.
If there is no enforcement (negative Karma) for a policy, and if anybody can hop in Mind Killer territory without suffering any penalty, then this policy doesn’t exist.
A valid complaint. But notice that the third post, where I was deep in politics, received the least karma. The first got points (I think) primarily by noting that judging a politician’s character is at least as difficult as judging a policy position, and the second got points mostly by noting that arguing the semantics of “WMD” was really going off the rails.