View From The Lean-To
Delegitimizing government is a feature not a bug of Trump
If there is anything that I really like about Donald Trump is that he is making government less legitimate and heald in less esteem then it often has been in the past. I’m not at all convinced that government workers and politicians are all noble people, indeed most of them are there primarily for a job and getting paid.
Calling government work noble and declaring government workers to be heroes is simply an excuse to underpay government workers, have unsafe working conditions and generally be uncompetitive to the private sector. Parades for fallen cops and soldiers doesn’t make their work places safer or better compensated, it simply strokes egos without improving anything. And it causes cops and soldiers to do inferior work as they believe they are special for being underpaid and forced to work in an unsafe work environments. And it displaces jobs potentially done better privately.
Trump is tearing down the notion of “the people” in the courts, holding the government rather than individuals in contempt. A ruling of any court is inherently political, all judges are either elected or are appointed by elected officials. They have biaes they face when interpreting the law. He’s also reminding us how laws are often rigged to favor incumbents and established players – and while he likes to point at Democrats and liberals – it’s pretty obvious it cuts both ways.
It’s not to say there is no role for government. There is. But government service is no more noble than any private persuit, indeed cops and soldiers are just as essential as farmers, plumbers and software engineers and cell phone manufacturers. Truth is modern life is impossible without all facets of the economy and government workers really aren’t any more important to society than any other industry.
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Escarptment Trail at Devil’s Path
Clearing out after the rain ☔
Last night was clear until well after bed time when it rained for a while. It was foggy this morning but by eight the blue skies returned. Breezy but clear.
It’s nice to wake up another morning in the wilderness. 🌄 It’s quite autumn like this morning with a reasonable amount of color. 🍁 I’ll probably head out riding in a bit 🚵 and do some reading 📖 and just thinking 💭 and dreaming today.
Yesterday was such a busy day with remote work 💻 and I already have more label 🏷️ and data jobs to run but I’m thinking most of them can wait until Sunday. I’m thinking I can process a bunch of them all at once at the Rennselaerville Library. Plus I don’t know how much solar ☀️ I get at this campsite. 🏕️ Especially in the autumn with the leaves still on the trees 🌲 but the sun angle quite low. 📐
Continue to be a bit annoyed by the Drive Safe and Save app. 📵 It just complains every time I turn off the Bluetooth or enable power saving, and loves to remind me it’s willing to record a trip ⏺️, every time I am drunk or high as duck 🦆. What for? Saving $50 every six months – less than $10 a month. I get it if it inspires me to avoid crashes good but it seems to ding me for hard braking so randomly and never gets me for actual bad driving 🚘 like those almost crunch moments on the road 💥 or when I look down and see I’m actually speeding by quite a bit. It’s like riding my bike 🚲 to work to avoid paying the bus 🚌 fare or eating whatever crap is at the campaign committee to save on food at home. 🍲 Not that even waves money 💰 in the long run. I know, spend money on what you actually care about and not on the other crap.
Just kind of a cool and breezy morning today, ☀️ taking it slow, doing a lot of reading 📖. Trying to learn everything I can about the Rust programming language but truth is I just need to sit down and write code. You can be an expert on the borrow checker but it’s meaningless without practice. But it’s a cool morning. I do want to ride over to Mount Pisagh later on an to the OSI Parcel of Cheese 🧀 Hill and just enjoy the colors and the beauty of the day. It’s a Saturday so the pace of work slows down a bit but I do have a bunch of data jobs to process but maybe the can wait until Sunday.