{"id":8757,"date":"2018-12-13T12:10:41","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T11:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=8757"},"modified":"2018-12-13T12:11:37","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T11:11:37","slug":"wishful-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/8757\/","title":{"rendered":"Wishful thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The other day, Soviet-born demented NeverTrumper Max Boot tweeted this:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">What\u2019s wrong with elitism? Shouldn\u2019t we want the best qualified people to run government just as we want the best qualified to fly airplanes, perform surgery, design buildings, etc? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/0NrljjpQ6z\">https:\/\/t.co\/0NrljjpQ6z<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Max Boot (@MaxBoot) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MaxBoot\/status\/1071863820396711940?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 9, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nLeave aside the silly notions that:<\/p>\n<p>1. Running government is the same as flying an airplane: does a pilot need to juggle dozens of competing interests with one eye on his job between takeoff and landing?<\/p>\n<p>2. Government is about qualifications: if it were, why bother with elections?<\/p>\n<p>3. People who think they&#8217;re the sort of expert who should be in government ought to be anywhere near the levers of power.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s instead look at the idea that we want the best qualified people to design buildings. Is it true? Well, I&#8217;ve been involved in some civil infrastructure projects and I recall the contracts were generally awarded to the local company with the strongest political connections. I&#8217;ve also been involved in several engineering tenders and although lip-service is paid to quality and track record, it generally goes to the bidder with the lowest price.<\/p>\n<p>And then there&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/bizfluent.com\/how-8423801-bid-minority-government-contracts.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>State, local and federal government agencies regularly make a certain number of contracts open to bidding from minority-owned business enterprises, or MBEs. This minority business certification is a designation given to companies with women or ethnic minorities in control or in ownership. Learning how to bid on minority government contracts involves securing appropriate forms of certification and identifying and applying for contracts posted by various state and federal government agencies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So we want the best qualified to design buildings, do we? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/6942\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">If only<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other day, Soviet-born demented NeverTrumper Max Boot tweeted this: What\u2019s wrong with elitism? Shouldn\u2019t we want the best qualified people to run government just as we want the best qualified to fly airplanes, perform surgery, design buildings, etc? https:\/\/t.co\/0NrljjpQ6z &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/8757\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8757"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8757"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8760,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8757\/revisions\/8760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}