I get so disappointed with the number of people who game the system to collect disability. To the point that they automatically assume it’s part of their retirement pay.
Yes, this behavior of college students is exactly what proves that America has become a nation of grifters. This is certainly the most prominent, the leading indicator, the most serious corruption that we should be focusing on. </s>
In this case though, lies have effectively been made mandatory to gain entry to certain 'elite' institutions. That is ultimately from the head, since sensible leadership would put an end to this immediately, but it's from a head that came into place in what, the 80s, 90s? Maybe earlier?
In India it's purely score based. Top on the JIT (although I guess they have special things for scheduled castes or something), you get in. In Sweden the same. Top 1% on the högskoleprov and there's nothing you can't get in to. Maybe KTH has its own, more advanced maths test for entry, and I think you need to pass an interview for medicine at KI, but aside from that nothing you can't get into. At ETH they see whether you can pass a first year of courses.
But in the US it's a bunch of weirdness, and it's from Idpol. I don't know if you could avoid it-- India obviously doesn't want to avoid it completely, but another idea is to not have the arbitrary eliteness be a thing. I used to believe in something like it, believing that only certain Swedish universities were okay (and that's probably still true for education), and then a bunch of Germans who wanted to be professors got jobs at the ones I thought were shitty and started doing good research and suddenly you ended up with places like Örebro, which I had regarded as 'what even is this' producing real science. I think the Germans are right and that a distributed less status-based university system is sensible.
I don’t like Trump, but he’s the first guy in a long long time to actually do things and not just talk about doing things. I don’t think that’s what institutional rot usually looks like? Now mind you I don’t think he’s going to fix anything and I’m also not sure he isn’t controlled opposition, but that would be some adversary and not institutional rot.
This is a fantastic comment in response to this article since it exemplifies the criticism of the article.
Once upon a time (ie 2 years ago) the President following the law, living up to both implicit and explicit agreements made with foreign nations, not wanting to plaster their own name onto everything, not lying about the citizens of the country, etc would be considered a good thing.
Today, doing the opposite is considered praiseworthy because “at least he’s doing something”.
This is exactly the “anything goes” mentality the author is critiquing.
> don’t like Trump, but he’s the first guy in a long long time to actually do things and not just talk about doing things.
Have you really never heard the phrase "it's much easier to tear things down than build them up"? Is the manifest obviousness of that phrase really not obvious to you?
Yes you too can
1. Talk about blowing up buildings
2. Blow up buildings
So he's not the first of anything in any length of time because this is what assholes all around the world do every day.
The article frames the focus on grifting, not institutional rot. I would say that institutional rot enables grifters. But also grifters in leadership positions set examples encouraging others to grift. Heck, this current crop of grifters we've got "leading" us will outright airlift prominent up-and-coming grifters right up into their ranks, Gervais Principle style.
I'd say that institutional rot would be a much better framework for analyzing the situation of all these disabilities being claimed, but that is not where this article goes! Rather the only thing it seemingly offers is that we're just supposed to feel bad and aim to be more like the single person in the one example given, even as our societal leaders crassly do the exact opposite.
(As far as Trump "doing things" - yes, he's doing a lot of grift at the expense of our country. That's kind of the problem, right? Bureaucratic malaise was bad, and this is worse)
You like Trump a lot more than anyone who is informed about the things he is actually doing should like him.
But regardless, the same point could have been made about the Republican party in general for decades.
See The Baffler's article titled "The Long Con" for a history. It opens with a now shockingly unshocking list of all the lies Romney told and the prescient claim that this was necessary for Republican voters to like him.
> Mitt Romney is a liar. Of course, in some sense, all politicians, even all human beings, are liars. Romney’s lying went so over-the-top extravagant by this summer, though, that the New York Times editorial board did something probably unprecedented in their polite gray precincts: they used the L-word itself. “Mr. Romney’s entire campaign rests on a foundation of short, utterly false sound bites,” they editorialized. He repeats them “so often that millions of Americans believe them to be the truth.” “It is hard to challenge these lies with a well-reasoned-but- overlong speech,” they concluded; and how. Romney’s lying, in fact, was so richly variegated that it can serve as a sort of grammar of mendacity.
[...]
> All righty, then: both the rank-and-file voters and the governing elites of a major American political party chose as their standardbearer a pathological liar. What does that reveal about them?
Should according to whom? According to you? The more straightforward way of phrasing this is “I don’t think you should like this person at all”. Okay, and?
He is after all a rapist, thief, liar, conman, bully, grifter, authoritarian, gangster, racist, sexist narcissist who may very well end the American empire and democracy, and with your help it seems.
Which seems on topic for an article about America becoming a nation of grifters.
https://archive.is/dVusK
I get so disappointed with the number of people who game the system to collect disability. To the point that they automatically assume it’s part of their retirement pay.
How many people do this?
Do you personally know anyone who does this?
Yes, this behavior of college students is exactly what proves that America has become a nation of grifters. This is certainly the most prominent, the leading indicator, the most serious corruption that we should be focusing on. </s>
The fish rots from the head.
In this case though, lies have effectively been made mandatory to gain entry to certain 'elite' institutions. That is ultimately from the head, since sensible leadership would put an end to this immediately, but it's from a head that came into place in what, the 80s, 90s? Maybe earlier?
In India it's purely score based. Top on the JIT (although I guess they have special things for scheduled castes or something), you get in. In Sweden the same. Top 1% on the högskoleprov and there's nothing you can't get in to. Maybe KTH has its own, more advanced maths test for entry, and I think you need to pass an interview for medicine at KI, but aside from that nothing you can't get into. At ETH they see whether you can pass a first year of courses.
But in the US it's a bunch of weirdness, and it's from Idpol. I don't know if you could avoid it-- India obviously doesn't want to avoid it completely, but another idea is to not have the arbitrary eliteness be a thing. I used to believe in something like it, believing that only certain Swedish universities were okay (and that's probably still true for education), and then a bunch of Germans who wanted to be professors got jobs at the ones I thought were shitty and started doing good research and suddenly you ended up with places like Örebro, which I had regarded as 'what even is this' producing real science. I think the Germans are right and that a distributed less status-based university system is sensible.
I don’t like Trump, but he’s the first guy in a long long time to actually do things and not just talk about doing things. I don’t think that’s what institutional rot usually looks like? Now mind you I don’t think he’s going to fix anything and I’m also not sure he isn’t controlled opposition, but that would be some adversary and not institutional rot.
This is a fantastic comment in response to this article since it exemplifies the criticism of the article.
Once upon a time (ie 2 years ago) the President following the law, living up to both implicit and explicit agreements made with foreign nations, not wanting to plaster their own name onto everything, not lying about the citizens of the country, etc would be considered a good thing.
Today, doing the opposite is considered praiseworthy because “at least he’s doing something”.
This is exactly the “anything goes” mentality the author is critiquing.
> don’t like Trump, but he’s the first guy in a long long time to actually do things and not just talk about doing things.
Have you really never heard the phrase "it's much easier to tear things down than build them up"? Is the manifest obviousness of that phrase really not obvious to you?
Yes you too can
1. Talk about blowing up buildings
2. Blow up buildings
So he's not the first of anything in any length of time because this is what assholes all around the world do every day.
The article frames the focus on grifting, not institutional rot. I would say that institutional rot enables grifters. But also grifters in leadership positions set examples encouraging others to grift. Heck, this current crop of grifters we've got "leading" us will outright airlift prominent up-and-coming grifters right up into their ranks, Gervais Principle style.
I'd say that institutional rot would be a much better framework for analyzing the situation of all these disabilities being claimed, but that is not where this article goes! Rather the only thing it seemingly offers is that we're just supposed to feel bad and aim to be more like the single person in the one example given, even as our societal leaders crassly do the exact opposite.
(As far as Trump "doing things" - yes, he's doing a lot of grift at the expense of our country. That's kind of the problem, right? Bureaucratic malaise was bad, and this is worse)
You like Trump a lot more than anyone who is informed about the things he is actually doing should like him.
But regardless, the same point could have been made about the Republican party in general for decades.
See The Baffler's article titled "The Long Con" for a history. It opens with a now shockingly unshocking list of all the lies Romney told and the prescient claim that this was necessary for Republican voters to like him.
> Mitt Romney is a liar. Of course, in some sense, all politicians, even all human beings, are liars. Romney’s lying went so over-the-top extravagant by this summer, though, that the New York Times editorial board did something probably unprecedented in their polite gray precincts: they used the L-word itself. “Mr. Romney’s entire campaign rests on a foundation of short, utterly false sound bites,” they editorialized. He repeats them “so often that millions of Americans believe them to be the truth.” “It is hard to challenge these lies with a well-reasoned-but- overlong speech,” they concluded; and how. Romney’s lying, in fact, was so richly variegated that it can serve as a sort of grammar of mendacity.
[...]
> All righty, then: both the rank-and-file voters and the governing elites of a major American political party chose as their standardbearer a pathological liar. What does that reveal about them?
-- 2012
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-long-con
Should according to whom? According to you? The more straightforward way of phrasing this is “I don’t think you should like this person at all”. Okay, and?
I think you should hate him.
He is after all a rapist, thief, liar, conman, bully, grifter, authoritarian, gangster, racist, sexist narcissist who may very well end the American empire and democracy, and with your help it seems.
Which seems on topic for an article about America becoming a nation of grifters.
But at least he's doing things!
[dead]