Although I have voted Democratic almost exclusively, this year I will not be voting for the Democratic candidate for President. And I fully expect the accusations to fly as to why. So I have decided to preempt the attacks that are surely coming by openly making the admission. I am a
competentist.
It's hard to admit these days but
Im sure to be outed anyway so I might as well do it myself. I am a
competentist. I believe in the superiority of competence above all else. I know this is going to get me in a world of trouble. I know its going to anger a lot of people. I know Keith
Olbermann is liable to make me the worst person in the world. But what can I do?
I realize that in this electoral climate to admit you are for competence is really asking for it. Incompetents everywhere are going to be screaming for my head. They are going to accuse me of prejudice. they are going to accuse me of intolerance.They are even going to accuse me of not wanting to be in the same room with incompetents. And they are going to be right.
Incompetents have made great strides in the last ten or 15 years and now occupy positions of power in politics, the mass media and news as they never have before. And I already know that incompetents everywhere are going to want to string me up.They are going to accuse me of wanting to turn back the clock to a time when incompetents could not occupy the same positions of responsibility that competent people did. They are going to accuse me of being divisive. And I suppose to some extent it's true.
I know that in some quarters even making the distinction between competent and incompetent people will upset a lot of people. But I want to be clear --
I'm not trying to take away their rights.
I'm not trying to get them fired from customer service and tech support jobs, or working for John Kerry and Nancy
Pelosi, or anything else,although I have to admit it would be nice. It's simply because I think competent people are better than incompetents. Not necessarily better people.
I have to admit I've always been a
competentist. Some will say its a choice I made and that its my own doing and to borrow a phrase from a Presidential candidate, I can change if I want to. People will say it;s not something I can blame on my background or upbringing, though
evangelicals will disagree and say I was born that way. Personally I just
don't know. All I do know is competence is just too ingrained in me. In fact I cant think of a day when I wasn't competent.
Growing up, competence was all around me. I had competent parents. I had competent teachers. Everywhere I looked there was competence.. Although many will find this hard to believe, I didn't know incompetence even existed when I was growing up. It was a foreign idea. I led a sheltered life. Every once in awhile I'd run into an incompetent person and use the "J" word and say things like, "boy what a jerk", but it was rare.
I started my work life in the advertising business and everyone I knew was competent.The partners in the ad agency where I started were extremely competent. Competence was a way of life. We even had meetings at night, after everyone else had gone home where we discussed how to be more competent.
Maybe that added to my intolerance. Incompetents made me angry. I didn't want to be around them. II didn't want to work with them. I just wouldn't have anything to do with them. But is just the way it was and, I admit, how it still is.
For much of my adult life in terms of friends and co-workers, competence was the norm.We were all competent. It just became a part of day to day life. Incompetents look back on those days as the bad old days. And its true. If you were incompetent back then you had very a hard time .It must have seemed like the whole world was against them and they didn't have a chance. Incompetents felt they were shut out of things.They wanted the same opportunities as
competents. They wanted to be doctors. They wanted to be lawyers. They wanted to be air traffic controllers. They even wanted to grow up to be Vice President. But society said no.
But times have changed.Incompetents have taken their place in the world, most prominently in the area of journalism. Some say its progress. I
don't know.
Today incompetent have the right to vote and to vote for whomever they please, And as we saw during the primary season they have done exactly that. we've also seen incompetents rise to positions of authority in the Democratic National Committee. One is the Chairman of the committee. One has become Speaker of the House. And one is running for President.Yes, we live in historic times.
And I believe they should be allowed the same rights as competent people. But I admit I just
don't like being around them. They make me nervous.
Yes Its been a historic time. In June super delegates in the Democratic Party were asked to use their best judgement in determining the strongest candidate for President of the United States. They looked at the results of a 6 month primary season and saw that one candidate
landslided the other in the 13 biggest states in the country. And they chose the loser. They picked the candidate who lost by a landslide in every big state in the northeast, the industrial
midwest, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, the entire southwest from Oklahoma to Nevada and the state of California.
Incompentents everywhere and in the news media were inspired by a candidate who spoke of change and hope but who could never say change to what or hope for what.Just change and hope. They were inspired by a candidate who said he couldn't disown his controversial pastor of 17 years anymore than he could disown a member of his own family until he disowned him and called him despicable. The press called him another Lincoln.
He went to Berlin and drew huge crowds by offering free food and a free rock concert and the press called him anther JFK. Actually they called him another JFK before that but after he broke his pledge to use public financing, reneged on voting against the
FISA bill, reversed his stance on gun control and off shore drilling and said he would continue Bush's policies on faith based initiatives that many think violate the Constitution.
But right from the beginning incompetents in the Democratic Party found hope in a Democratic candidate who said Republicans were the party of ideas.
I know I am asking for trouble. We live in a different age and a different time. We are supposed to be more tolerant. We live in a time where Nancy
Pelois the Speaker of the House and Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader have managed to achieve through hard work, a lower job approval rating than George W. Bush. This gives heart to people everywhere who have a 9% job approval rating. With this accomplishment on the record they made their choice for nominee known and many in the Democratic Party followed.It was
Pelosi who said her choice for President had the judgement to be President. And many Democrats followed.
Those who didn't have been called divisive.
Incompetents of all ages, races, and gender have made great strides in the Democratic Party this year and have sent out a candidate that represents their hopes for even greater power. But, I just cant go along. I know the Democratic Party made history this year. For the first time in political history the candidate with most votes lost. It was a historic moment. And incompetents everywhere rejoiced.
Incompetents at Stanford University and the Associated Press conducted a poll last week. They put out the story that, according to the poll the Democratic candidate for President could lose based on race because, they say the poll shows that 40% of Democrats have reservations about voting for a black man and that race could impact negatively on his candidacy. Of course, being incompetents, they never did bother to explain how a black man became the nominee of the Democratic Party in the first place if that were true.One assumes they are still scratching their heads over that one. On second thought, maybe they're not.
For those who want to strike a blow against incompetence click the donate button and make a contribution to Democrats For Principle Before Party, an offshoot of the Denver Group who will be running ads and commercials in battleground states to defeat Obama and return competence to the DNC and Democratic Party.