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Ross Levatter's avatar

"Why do men fight? They fight for food. And not only food. Sometimes there must be a beverage."--Woody Allen

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DavesNotHere's avatar

These questions have been bothering me for a while. All the answers I come up with seem demonstrably wrong.

Realpolitik is a total nonstarter. But idealpolitik doesn’t really work either. Obviously the leadership doesn’t believe in some ideal. So are they just opportunists, doing what they think will put them ahead? It seems too monolithic for that, too group-thinky. If they were opportunistic, there would be more variety, with innovators trying to find a flavor that works better for them. I am puzzled how that ends up being unanimous stupidity. Maybe there is something lumpy about it, and people are afraid to depart too far from the dominant thinking? That might make sense, if the result wasn't embarrassing failure , after debacle, after humiliation.

I guess the only conjecture left is that opportunistic leaders are highly constrained within a narrow range of negative sum alternatives imposed on them by... popular support and defense contractor lobbyists?

But this also seems nuts. At some point, Charlie Brown has to stop trying to kick the football.

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