Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Adults make decisions and accept consequences

One of the criticisms that is leveled at President Trump is that he reduces everything to simple, binary decisions.

His stark Black/White world-view causes his critics angst. They are more comfortable in a world populated with a thousand shades of gray.

Those of us who want Trump to have a chance are sometimes sucked into the arguments of the "thousand shades of gray" crowd.

I want to offer a counterpoint.

One of the hallmarks of being an adults is that we know that we have to make choices and that we "own" the consequences. Decisions in real life are not like an artist mixing paints on his palette. Most decisions are separated with the word "or".

We choose in good faith but sometimes there are consequences, often unintended, that follow. That is why we study important decisions before making them. Any decision will have unintended consequences. Our jobs, as adults, is to suss out the net benefit of A vs. B.

That is what it means to be an adult.

The "thousand shades of gray" people want to remain in their childhood where they can make a decision, sort of. "I will spend the afternoon with Julie but text Susie on the side." kind of thinking. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

The POTUS makes macro-decisions and the folks on the ground decide how to implement it. It is not his job to render ambiguous non-decisions.

There are systems of checks-and-balances to ameliorate the inevitable negatives. That is not Trump's job.

If forcing asylum seekers to follow procedures results in excessive waits at the border then more resources can be dedicated to processing them or the process can be streamlined.

1 comment:

  1. I think the fact that he IS willing to make decisions is what scares people more than anything else. It forces people to actually DO things!

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