RFK Jr. as Health Secretary. Why not?

Author: IlDiavolo
Conspiracy Theory
deep state
RFK Jr
Health Secretary
nomination

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Total: 78
#61
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@WyIted
Your the boss you just tell people what to do. Make orders.
Considering just how many people in these departments are on the verge of either getting removed from them or taking a buy-out, the notion that they could just order someone to do it and see it done is already a little off kilter. Besides that, I just don't like the notion that you'd get someone in with virtually no knowledge of how their department works and just rely on the staff there to see to whatever whims they have. The boss should be competent enough to understand how their department works. If they don't, then they have no concept for how their orders will be implemented, which is something any boss should know before requiring a staff that is already overworked and understaffed to implement an idea they've never tried before.

This is a coalition government forming ideals we can all get behind like eradicating fraud and abuse.
I agree that we can get behind eradicating fraud and abuse, I don't agree with the use of the term "coalition government." There's no inter-party cooperation happening here. Just because some former Democrats have joined that government and some Democrats have agreed with policy aims of this government doesn't make it a coalition.

My reasoning is that I don't see many people better than her that will shake things up. If everything is shit than you know shaking things up is good.

I always vote based on who will shake things up.
So by this logic, her desire to shake things up comes before any degree of competence to actually handle the position. Not how I see it, but at least I understand.

I shake things up and when I am in positions to run things I see few people who get better results than me and I have the numbers to prove it.  Granted I am managing staffs of less than 50 people when I do it.

I can only conclude that since I am the best at increasing profits and productivity and I shake things up, than others who shake things up are also supremely competent.

I always had the best numbers in whatever district I was in and I shake things up.
I'm not particularly fond of comparing your workplace to, say, a department of the US government that oversees the usage of hundreds of billions or even trillions of taxpayer dollars. Doesn't seem like a fair comparison. Also, just because you're competent and shake things up doesn't mean that everyone who shakes things up is competent, nor that, even if they are competent at some things, their competence extends to this specific branch of government. Both of these are fallacious arguments based on your personal experience rather than anything about Tulsi Gabbard herself that demonstrates your point.
#62
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@whiteflame
The boss should be competent enough to understand how their department works. If they don't, then they have no concept for how their orders will be implemented, which is something any boss should know before requiring a staff that is already overworked and understaffed to implement an idea they've never tried before.
They aren't understaffed. Did you see Elon bringing up how employee retirements go because the process isn't automated?

Besides that. If we have an organization that sucks, I wouldn't think you need to know how it works. You need to know how it should work and make it work that way.

I always went into new places with a vision for how things should work and then made them work that way.


So by this logic, her desire to shake things up comes before any degree of competence to actually handle the position. Not how I see it, but at least I understand.
As somebody who shakes things up it's my experience that we are competent people. The leaders who are bad usually do not shake things up. Some are micro managers, most are just trying to do as little as they can get away with it but none seem to be those looking to make big sweeping changes.

Both of these are fallacious arguments based on your personal experience rather than anything about Tulsi Gabbard herself that demonstrates your point.
Fair enough but I will say that when you read history books it's rarely the people who are satisfied with the status quo that go down as great leaders. I know to a certain extent you dismiss the great man theory of history but these history books seem to agree with the great man theory.

As far as scale whether billion dollar industry or some small club of 5 people, it's my beliefs that a correct philosophy should scale so what's true on very small scales should be replicable at large ones and visa versa.

If you are good at selling to an audience of 1000 your pitch should work as well on an audience of one or visa versa.
#63
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Also you kind of have to go on personal experience you don't technically know that anything outside of your personal experience is real.
#64
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@WyIted
They aren't understaffed. Did you see Elon bringing up how employee retirements go because the process isn't automated?
So... because there are issues with how employees retire... they're not understaffed and current efforts to cull their ranks are having no effect whatsoever? Really?


Elon clearly lacks some facts.

Besides that. If we have an organization that sucks, I wouldn't think you need to know how it works. You need to know how it should work and make it work that way.
Even an organization that sucks still functions on some level. The notion that there's no need to understand how it works in order to change it is baffling to me, dude. They aren't starting from scratch and they shouldn't pretend that they are.

As somebody who shakes things up it's my experience that we are competent people. The leaders who are bad usually do not shake things up. Some are micro managers, most are just trying to do as little as they can get away with it but none seem to be those looking to make big sweeping changes.
Someone who shakes things up isn't inherently competent just because they want to shake things up. This argument is pure confirmation bias. Just because I want to shake things up doesn't mean I could go into any random astrophysics lab and competently address issues they're facing or overhaul the lab in a positive direction.

Fair enough but I will say that when you read history books it's rarely the people who are satisfied with the status quo that go down as great leaders. I know to a certain extent you dismiss the great man theory of history but these history books seem to agree with the great man theory.
There are a lot of problems with the so-called "great man theory of history," but even if I fully bought into it, the implication you're making - that it's fine to put anyone into these positions so long as they want to shake things up sufficiently - doesn't follow. Not everyone who wants to shake things up will bring about positive developments or become great.

As far as scale whether billion dollar industry or some small club of 5 people, it's my beliefs that a correct philosophy should scale so what's true on very small scales should be replicable at large ones and visa versa.

If you are good at selling to an audience of 1000 your pitch should work as well on an audience of one or visa versa.
As someone who has worked with bioreactors a fair number of times, I'm here to tell you that applying that mindset to scaling them is what results in mass failures in that industry. It's essential to recognize those ways in which sizes modify the way that things run, and that's true regardless of the industry. The notion that everything should scale perfectly simply by increasing the size does not match reality.

Also you kind of have to go on personal experience you don't technically know that anything outside of your personal experience is real.
On that basis, none of this matters. It's all outside of our personal experience, so if you subscribe to this, the whole argument is moot.

#65
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@WyIted
Even if the naysayer pessimism were to bear full fruit, the logistics of the alphabet agency cuts can't have as an immediate effect as they claim. It's not as though if the FDA were to skip all inspections that meat companies will all of a sudden feel free to sell poisoned meat. There are a great many other checks for that other than the FDA.

Much of what you see as "necessary" is not only inefficient and corrupt, but in most cases, redundant. And even if it took a few years for states to regain local control to repair the inefficiencies of central planning, it's not like you would notice anything different from a day to day basis. The changes would be near imperceptible, but the waste would be vastly diminished.

And listing all the alphabet agencies' spending woes with no context of the included waste and fraud isn't evidence of practical underfunding.
We spend 3x per student per day for education compared to Japan and have much worse outcomes. All the money in the world can't fund that level of corruption and incompetence adequately.

#66
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You can can point out areas where there is both waste in labor or services and see areas that can be automated. So it doesn't make much sense to me that you can simultaneously have inefficiencies and labor shortages. Technically labor shortages should result in the staff only doing the most important and urgent things
#67
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I might become an AI ambassador to humanity at some point.

Technically labor shortages should result in the staff only doing the most important and urgent things
All the armchair experts thought X would collapse under it's own weight when 80% of the staff was fired, but it seems to be doing just fine.
#68
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@Greyparrot
Even if the naysayer pessimism were to bear full fruit, the logistics of the alphabet agency cuts can't have as an immediate effect as they claim. It's not as though if the FDA were to skip all inspections that meat companies will all of a sudden feel free to sell poisoned meat. There are a great many other checks for that other than the FDA.

Much of what you see as "necessary" is not only inefficient and corrupt, but in most cases, redundant. And even if it took a few years for states to regain local control to repair the inefficiencies of central planning, it's not like you would notice anything different form a day to day basis. The changes would be near imperceptible, but the waste would be vastly diminished.
In other words, because some of the things these organizations do would likely still occur (at least in the short term) without them, they're basically dispensable, right?

So, tell me: what happens in an outbreak? Sure, that outbreak probably would have happened with or without FDA inspections in the short term, but that's not the issue. The issue is response. It's mapping the outbreak via the CDC, tracking the organism that did it and notifying local hospitals, tracing the source of the outbreak, recalling the item from store shelves, and issuing notice to both stores and the public at large that specific products are impacted. These are rapid responses that happen shortly after an outbreak occurs, several of which involve that alphabet soup. We can throw in instances of bird flu, which rope in the USDA, FDA and CDC as well.

Also, convenient choice to leave out the entire drug development side of this. If the FDA stops functioning as an organization, drug development stops cold. Anyone in the middle of preclinical or clinical trials stops cold, often billions of dollars down for their trouble. Companies rely on being able to get to market for a return on that massive investment, so they're effectively forced to shelve it and get the money back through other products of theirs already on the market. Meanwhile, the public loses out on whatever products are shelved during that span of time, delaying what could be essential treatments. You might not notice that because you wouldn't be aware that you're missing out on those treatments, but people who don't have access to them sure would be affected.

And listing all the alphabet agencies spending woes with no context of the waste and fraud isn't evidence of practical underfunding.
We spend 3x per student per day for education compared to Japan and have much worse outcomes. All the money in the world can't fund that level of corruption and incompetence adequately.
What I listed was instances where these agencies are understaffed. The cause of that understaffing has no bearing on my point, since the reality of their understaffing and how that affects their day-to-day operations is what I was referencing. There can be multiple causes of that, many of which span beyond this administration, but the result is the same regardless: a the lack of both expertise and personnel required by people like RFK and Tulsi Gabbard, who necessarily will rely on their staff in order to effectively run these organizations due to their own lack of experience.

#69
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What I listed was instances where these agencies are understaffed.
Same principle. A corrupt and inefficient enterprise will never be adequately staffed. 
#70
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Same principle. A corrupt and inefficient enterprise will never be adequately staffed. 
So essentially, your response to any dysfunction in these organizations is that it results entirely from being corrupt and inefficient, and thus it's a waste to ever give them resources and they should just be torn down and their financial support distributed to other sources. It's a wonder you support the existence of any organization with that mindset, since any inefficiencies become sufficient reason to just scrap them entirely and try again.
#71
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the existence of any organization 

I see you conveniently left out the corrupt and inefficient modifiers. That's the kind of bad faith arguments people regularly make by removing the modifier "illegal" from migrants.

I really expected better.

And that's not a commonly held belief, to hire more people in order to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, as the staff is often complicit in it all.
#72
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I see you conveniently left out the corrupt and inefficient modifiers. That's the kind of bad faith arguments people make by removing the modifier "illegal" from migrants.

I really expected better.
Funny, I did say inefficient. But hey, I’m up for a second try at this.

Your argument assumes corruption and inefficiency are both a permanent, unchangeable state of these agencies and the cause of every problem they face. Their lack of staffing can’t possibly be the result of reduced funding over the years and a now persistent effort by this administration to bleed them dry, but rather their own fault for existing as corrupt and inefficient agencies. And clearly, that corruption and inefficiency also makes anything they do functionally useless, so issues like not having enough inspectors to perform audits at food processing facilities or epidemiologists to track outbreaks are non-issues because what they are doing is functionally useless anyway, corrupt and inefficient as it is. Oh, and states can do it better for… reasons, I guess. 

Did I capture your argument this time?

And that's not a commonly held belief, to hire more people in order to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, as the staff is often complicit in it all.
Also not a common belief that these agencies should be slowly bled of their staff until they are incapable of performing many of their most basic functions. I guess instances of waste, fraud and abuse are so pervasive that it’s better for them to cease to exist than persist.


Look, if this is seriously your argument, then this isn’t a discussion anymore. You’re welcome to your views on this issue, but when your response to me is that it’s better to burn it all down and hope something meaningful grows from the ashes, we’re clearly just too far apart on this. At that point, there’s so little that we agree on that we can’t even have a meaningful debate because we don’t agree on the most fundamental aspect of how regulatory agencies should function: I believe they should, you believe they shouldn’t. There is no overlap here, no middle ground for us to meet at, so why not just stop here?
#73
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Predictably, CNN regularly runs cover for these corrupt agencies, demanding evidence instead of speaking truth to power and collecting the evidence on their own volition.

Instead of actively investigating or exposing corruption, they demand others provide evidence first.... arguably missing an easy opportunity to act as the "watchdog" the press is ideally supposed to be. 36 trillion dollars of debt didn't just evolve out of perfectly run systems....
#74
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@whiteflame
This is a coalition government forming ideals we can all get behind like eradicating fraud and abuse.
I agree that we can get behind eradicating fraud and abuse, I don't agree with the use of the term "coalition government." 
I agree that we can all get behind eradicating fraud and abuse, but that statement is nothing but a distraction, the current process is specifically designed to increase fraud and abuse.  Replacing the competent with loyalists is itself fraudulent and abusive, and it is a necessary preparation for more fraud and abuse.

There is a full-frontal assault on the FBI and DOJ, especially anyone that has ever investigated members of the current regime for fraud or abuse, the message is clear, the intent is clear.  This administration is not "eradicating", it is facilitating.
#75
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I agree that we can all get behind eradicating fraud and abuse, but that statement is nothing but a distraction, the current process is specifically designed to increase fraud and abuse.  Replacing the competent with loyalists is itself fraudulent and abusive, and it is a necessary preparation for more fraud and abuse.

There is a full-frontal assault on the FBI and DOJ, especially anyone that has ever investigated members of the current regime for fraud or abuse, the message is clear, the intent is clear.  This administration is not "eradicating", it is facilitating.
Entirely agreed. I’ve been giving a lot of these arguments the benefit of any doubt regarding their real aims vs. stated aims, but especially given how Elon Musk in particular has used dismantling USAID and CFPB to both end cases against him and pave the road forward for his own companies to make massive bank, it’s not even particularly well hidden.
#76
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I agree that we can all get behind eradicating fraud and abuse, but that statement is nothing but a distraction, the current process is specifically designed to increase fraud and abuse.  Replacing the competent with loyalists is itself fraudulent and abusive, and it is a necessary preparation for more fraud and abuse.

There is a full-frontal assault on the FBI and DOJ, especially anyone that has ever investigated members of the current regime for fraud or abuse, the message is clear, the intent is clear.  This administration is not "eradicating", it is facilitating.
Entirely agreed. I’ve been giving a lot of these arguments the benefit of any doubt regarding their real aims vs. stated aims, but especially given how Elon Musk in particular has used dismantling USAID and CFPB to both end cases against him and pave the road forward for his own companies to make massive bank,
Practically everything Trump campaigned on was fraudulent, from the big lie that he won the 2020 election to the economy toimmigration to abortion – everything he campaigned on was based on easily provable lies. Despite Trump’s screeching assertions,inflation was down, growth was up, illegal border crossings were down, crime wasdown, vaccines work great, and the Chinese don't pay for tariffs, American's do.   

it’s not even particularly well hidden.
They are not even trying to hide it, bragging about it instead.  When Trump said "I could shoot somebody on 8th avenue and wouldn't lose a single vote" he was bragging about just how far he could go as a criminal and his followers would still support him.  I thought that was insulting to his base when he said it, thought his campaign was over, hell, he has proven again and again that he was right, he has 

Somehow the conspiracy mindset allowed Trump to discredit all of our sources of information.  The mainstream media in the enemy of the people, the imaginary "deep state" runs the government, scientists are conspiring against us, once the sheeple swallow that garbage, you can't even have a rational discussion about anything.  Probably the most privileged American ever played the victim and got away with it, it's like the country became a Fellini movie.

34 Felonies, that's not about his crimes, it's evidence of the plot against him, two impeachments, that just proves it's the government that's corrupt, multiple fraud convictions, that is evidence of witch hunts, 27 accusations of sexual assault, just shows how much they are out to persecute poor, innocent little rich kid.

Trump ran against the truth and won, and now, we are truly fucked.  



#77
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Somehow...

Oh there most definitely was a "how" that it happened.
#78
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Somehow...

Oh there most definitely was a "how" that it happened.
Oh, I know how it happened, I watched it happen, it's just that I never believed this country could have been dumbed down that far.

We are supposed to be a superpower, by far the most powerful nation in the world, who'd have believed we could be conquered by a charlatan whose only weapons were lies and conspiracy theories.

Fucking unbelievable.