ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.

It is my sincere hope that the thus far chaotic and challenging presidency of Donald Trump will once and for all discredit the wrong-headed and misguided popular notion that “government should be run like a business.”

This notion has been at the heart of the problems we have endured during the past year or so. Though “friends” such as Ranger Rick, Free Market Man and Army Bob surely disagree, my assertion is that President Trump is incapable of governing effectively because he approaches it from the point of view of a corporate chief executive officer, which is how he has lived most of his life.

Anyone who runs government like a business is attempting to treat an institution that is supposed to be a republic or a democracy in a top-down fashion. Trump is accustomed to being the boss and having everyone carry out his wishes as he sees fit. He apparently is not used to people challenging or disagreeing with him and believes it to be insubordination.

In his business, it is his right and sometimes his responsibility to made the decisions. In a democratic system or a republic, however, he is supposed to bring people together to make decisions that benefit many.

Some of my friends on the left have spent far too much time denigrating the President for his appearance, his hair, his overweight girth and other extraneous characteristics. I consider virtually all of this a waste of time, a process in which customarily good people get down down in the mud with a pig who enjoys the wrestling.

Meanwhile, I see this republic continue to spiral downward into dangerous waters, in which civil political discourse is discouraged while playground taunting is encouraged. And the eventual wages may be totalitarianism. As a life-long student of history, I always have wondered how the normally intelligent and decent people of Germany could have allowed what happened there 85 years ago.

“Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” — Georges Santayana

It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I have not been a fan of President Donald Trump. He was such a poor presidential candidate that I was forced to vote for Hillary Clinton, an act that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

But I sincerely believe that our horrible political divisions, in which too many love their party or tribe more than they love our country, will lead us to the ruin that famously has reminded us that “United we stand, divided we fall.”

Please save what is left of our republic, and reject any idea that government be handled like a business.

5 Comments

Free Market Man
March 19, 2018
While we all have different opinions on how the government should be run, we all know the government can't balance a checkbook or live within it's tax revenue. While we mere lowly citizens must pay our debts and spend less than we make to be monetarily solvent, government has no such boundaries, they just up the debt limit and print more treasury notes (more debt) for others to buy and subsidize the hogs at the money trough. Contrary to the editor's wrongheaded thinking, the government hasn't been run like a business ever and look where that has gotten us - it's about time it started acting like a business. As for the disunity and discouraging words flung about by politicians and the media (fake news), it all started in earnest with President Obama's executive orders to circumvent Congress to get what he wanted forced on Americans. If you want to blame anyone, blame the party you love so much. Marxists stick with Marxists and propagate Marxist ideas, Ideas the once proud and inclusive Democrat party used to embrace fighting for the middle-class, unions, the "little"people, or in Clintonspeak - "deplorables". The Democrats offer nothing but taxes. taxes. and more taxes and coddling to the fringe elements of society, illegal aliens, and anything un-American. They are almost on the level of President Obama, a president who never loved this country and never thought America was exceptional. How can a person that is president think the country he represents in not exceptional? If you don't, you should never have been president. Unfortunately for us, he was for 8 long, long years. If you like no growth, no jobs, no optimism, more taxes, more regulation, vote Democrat.
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Lynn Mandaville
March 19, 2018
I just love how some respondents get caught in extraneous issues tangential to the issue at hand. I think if you read the editor's piece carefully, you'll find that he is talking about a business run by an autocratic CEO, top to bottom, without much input by advisors being antithetical to the way a republic ought to be run. In particular, Mr. Young is talking about not running the US government like a Trump-owned business. Mr. Trump has shown himself to be as impulsive in suggesting projects/promises for the US government as he did for his failed businesses. (Unless, of course, the purposes of those businesses was to launder money for the Russians, then erase the trails to that activity. But I digress and commit the same argumentative crime I'm complaining about.) He proposes expensive projects like a billion dollar border wall and a trillion dollar infrastructure program, then cuts a major source of revenue by passing a tax bill that eliminates taxes from the richest people in the country. Where is the business sense in that? By going in the hole with government money, he cannot declare bankruptcy or write off the losses on his taxes. So little of what he suggests makes sense in the arena of using public financial resources wisely. Please refrain from comparing this administration to past ones. The issue at hand is how the current president and his administration are squandering our tax dollars. The money they waste on questionable walls or "space forces" was earned by you and me with years and years of hard work and a share of the fruits of that labor. Then, in turn, they show preferential treatment to the wealthiest citizens while cutting our health care and misappropriating our social security contributions. Let's stick to the issue rather than stoop to partisan blame. The Trump business model doesn't apply to responsible fiscal governing.
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Free Market Man
March 20, 2018
Ms. Mandeville, President Barak Obama doubled the national debt in 8 years and not a peep from the fake news media about it, the one you so cherish to give us the straight scoop every night. I have refrained from watching national news for some time because of the biased and slanted pro-Democrat and negative Republican coverage. Cutting the tax rates on all Americans, those who have had to endure 8 years of minimal growth, high taxes and scandals. It was tried by Presidents Kennedy, Reagan, and now Trump and the economy boomed. Low tax rates, low taxes, and less regulation make it easier for the economy to grow and expand. What don't Democrats understand? When something is taxed, directly or indirectly, it adds monetary burden on the buyer, and the seller suffers because the market shrinks for the product or service they provide. Contrary to your thoughts, President Trump is trying to get America up and working again and it is moving in the positive direction. Please, just say thank you for less taxes and probably a higher tax refund because of Trump initiatives! I find it ironic the more they look into Russia, Russia, Russia, they are finding more and more evidence the Clinton campaign are the dirty tricksters and they have the Russia connections and were being played by outside computer hackers because of Hillary's insistence she have her own server. She should be indicted, not praised. What she did was highly illegal, bordering on treason by allowing hackers to steal government documents. Now President Obama is being looked at for his and his administrations actions during this time. More to come out soon.
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Mike williams
March 19, 2018
All well and good, yet I think he (Trump) is on the right path to drain the swamp. Political and conservative authors ( here at Townbroadcast) do not agree. Oh well. Let us continue to debate....
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Basura
March 31, 2018
“By his own account, in 1976, when he was starting his career, Donald Trump was worth $200 million. Today, he says he’s worth $8 billion. If he’d just put that original $200 million into an index fund, and reinvested the dividends, he’d be worth $12 billion today.” Robert Reich, author of The Common Good
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