To settle a lunch bet

[pyat]

Attention momentrabbit and nottheterritory:

Eisenhower was very bald, but not fat. Just jowly.

Comments

[paka.livejournal.com]

He was also, by current American standards, a moonbat crazy left-winger noteworthy for saying that a military-industrial complex was a bad thing, that he had to stop and think whether he'd ever gotten any ideas from Nixon, and that the only people who'd want to dismantle the advantages brought by the New Deal were a few insanely greedy millionaires and Texas oilmen.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he was the last real Republican to hold office.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I've argued that he may have been the last "pure" president, someone who was elected because he was a prominent and respected citizen BEFORE entering the political realm.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

All the more reason to make political office subject to a mandatory draft, and burdened with sufficient downside to keep it from being in any way desirable or effective to try to profiteer from it.

Sadly it wouldn't work.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Why? Is it just because there's no way to make the office unappealing to everyone?

I mean, daily public floggings was my first idea, but obviously that wouldn't work.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

It would be rather difficult for them to be effective while at the same time making it impossible for them to profiteer.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

The problem now is that it's unappealing to many of the people who would be good at it, and appealing to people who are power-hungry rather than principled and are too hard-hearted to care what the media say about them.

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

Like how David Eddings describes the political system of the island of Tiga (I think) in the Tamuli?

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Might well be - but I got the idea from a Legion of Super-Heroes comic published in the late 1970s, wherein Tenzil Kim (matter-eater lad) is forced to leave because he has been drafted to public service．

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

I'll have to look and find the description. Heh.

[stress-kitten.livejournal.com]

Basically, when it's your turn to rule, all your assets are nationalized... if the country turns a profit, you turn a profit. If the country takes a loss, you take a loss.

:-)

No one wants the position, but when they're in it, damn do they try their hardest to make sure the country's economy is stable if not booming.

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

Yup. There was a little more to it, but that's the basics.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the documentary, Why We Fight ?