Military Service makes a better politician.

[M14 Shooter]

I'd happily admit to being wrong if I were.

 

[Ravi]

*yawn*

 

[M14 Shooter]

*yawn*

Typical response from the intellectually incapable.

 

[Dr Grump]

This is asinine

As is your statement, considering what you just said in your previous post to this one (number 33)...

 

[tigerbob]

Any career can also provide the same benefits. IMO, people do well in their chosen fields because of who they are, not what the field is. I can't see how Bush's military experience qualified him in the slightest for president, nor did Clinton's lack of military experience.

Put another way, your Prince isn't a good person because he went to Afghanistan to fight. He went to Afghanistan to fight because he's a good person.

I would say he went because it was his duty, but I think we're in the same ball park.

 

[tigerbob]

Yes... because the McD drive-thru position has the same challenges as an infantry platoon leader.

This seems to have provoked a rather long disagreement. I had been thinking that your response above was sarcasm (i.e. McD drive thru and infantry platoon challenges are as different as chalk and cheese), but Ravir took it literaly.

For what it's worth, I can see similar challenges between a good infantry platoon leader and a good McD drive thru employee, but only if I look really hard.

E.g. both have to clearly understand orders and execute them well.

I said I'd have to look hard. In general though, the jobs are as different as a concert pianist and a truck driver.

 

[tigerbob]

Should a candidate have experienced poverty? Should he have fallen on hard times to understand the difficulties that poor people face?

That's a really interesting parallel. I suspect that having been a leader in any number of industries would help one to develop levels of experience that are similar to some of those that will be developed by a career in the military (not all of them, but many).

I've worked in big and small companies on both sides of the atlantic for over 25 years. The smallest company had one office in the UK and employed about 30 people, the largest employed about 70,000 and had offices in 130 countries. This mix of experience, I believe, has provided me with levels of understanding that might be consistent with some experience gained in the military (ability to work well as a small team or a large and geographically dispersed team, understanding of cultures different to my own, the importance of reliable logistics networks, the difficulties inherent in global communication, etc.).

However, nothing I've ever done has really given me an insight into what it must be like to be poor. I have some degree of understanding of the issues faced, but can not possibly understand all of them. So, in what way would my experience qualify me to make policy in this area? Answer - it probably wouldn't.

On the other hand, would you want all your policy made by someone who had spent 20 years on minimum wage? Probably not. Would you want economic decisions made by someone who can't balance their check book? Maybe not.

And so we return to the question would you want a C in C who has never experienced military life?

One thing is clear. If a leader develops experience in some fields, he or she will naturally have limited opportunity to develop skills in others. As with most things in life everything is a tradeoff, and nowhere more so than in politics.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

A Presidents job has nothing to do with poverty or social programs at all. READ the damn Constitution. The President is to ensure the Government functions, he is to ensure the States operate united, to ensure interstate Commerce flows freely, to protect the Country and individual States from enemies foreign and domestic. To ensure one Voice is heard by Foreign Nations.

I am STILL waiting for where in the Constitution the Federal Government has ANY power to run ANY social programs for the citizenry of this Country.

It does NOT exist.

 

[tigerbob]

A Presidents job has nothing to do with poverty or social programs at all. READ the damn Constitution. The President is to ensure the Government functions, he is to ensure the States operate united, to ensure interstate Commerce flows freely, to protect the Country and individual States from enemies foreign and domestic. To ensure one Voice is heard by Foreign Nations.

I am STILL waiting for where in the Constitution the Federal Government has ANY power to run ANY social programs for the citizenry of this Country.

It does NOT exist.

Read the damn constitution? What's that got to do with anything? A huge amount of welfare is federally run, and up to 80% of the costs are met by the federal Government.

http://www.urban.org/publications/306620.html

But that wasn't really what this thread was about. Still, maybe you'd like to write GWB and the current crop of Pres hopefuls and let them know that they should not be getting involved in setting policy but should concentrate solely on the points you make above - I'm sure they'll find it enlightening.