No Grandmothers Died Because of Trump's Order

A woman died, to be sure: but she died before the order was issued, and the pathetic story concocted by her son was a lie.

Philosophically speaking, it hardly matters. Trump's order made possible such a scenario, even if it didn't play out. It's one of the hard problems you take on with that kind of authority: your decisions have unintended consequences, and sometimes they can be awful. You have to bear responsibility for them even though you may never have imagined them.

By sad coincidence we have a real life example of that in the other story about the new President today. He left the White House with no destination announced, apparently shocking lots of people. It turns out he was flying out to meet the body of the Navy SEAL who died in the raid in Yemen, the first military action Trump has ordered. The family requested no publicity, which is hard to make coincide with a Presidential visit, but he somehow made it happen.

So this other thing didn't happen, but it might have; he avoided the guilt of it, but only by accident. This is one reason I've never sought power over the lives of others, only the power to hold my own. It's an awful responsibility.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

.....He took his daughter with him..... see pic

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-01/trump-makes-unannounced-trip-honor-fallen-seal

-Mississippi

douglas said...

I think most people who've never had to do that have no idea, don't even think about it. When I considered joining the military, I didn't really have an interest in going to OCS as I didn't really want that kind of responsibility.

It's sort of the same with bosses- those who have them almost universally like to complain about them, but most of them wouldn't do any better and quite possibly would be worse, and they don't want the responsibility anyway.

It's also why W's sincerity in dealing with the troops and their families earned so much respect from me. I can't say whether or not it made him a better leader, but it certainly helped to know he took it seriously, and was well aware of what he was asking of those he commanded