In my opinion, based on a moderate level of personal experience, the assumption that politicians are primarily motivated by self-interest at the margin in equilibrium is simply false.
As a well known politician once noted, you can fool some of the people all of the time.
It would either be polite or impolite to make explicit who the “some of the people” are that you refer to in this sentence, and what relevance this has to Mass_Driver’s remark. I am curious to hear which.
Mass_Driver appears to be one of the people who can be fooled all of the time since he judges politicians by what they say and how they present themselves rather than by what their actions say about their incentives and motivations. I did not intend to be ambiguous.
Thank you—I had suspected that might be your meaning, but I prefer not to pronounce negative judgments on people without clear cause, and I have read plenty of comments which appeared equally damning but were of an innocent nature upon elaboration. Carry on.
I appreciate your unusually deft grasp of the English language. Upvoted.
(I also appreciate the paucity of my education in the sociology of representative government, and must therefore bow out of the discussion. Please discount my opinion appropriately.)
It would either be polite or impolite to make explicit who the “some of the people” are that you refer to in this sentence, and what relevance this has to Mass_Driver’s remark. I am curious to hear which.
Mass_Driver appears to be one of the people who can be fooled all of the time since he judges politicians by what they say and how they present themselves rather than by what their actions say about their incentives and motivations. I did not intend to be ambiguous.
Thank you—I had suspected that might be your meaning, but I prefer not to pronounce negative judgments on people without clear cause, and I have read plenty of comments which appeared equally damning but were of an innocent nature upon elaboration. Carry on.
I appreciate the irony of your veiled criticism. Upvoted.
I appreciate your unusually deft grasp of the English language. Upvoted.
(I also appreciate the paucity of my education in the sociology of representative government, and must therefore bow out of the discussion. Please discount my opinion appropriately.)