America - Who's Qualified?

I keep swearing that I will leave politics alone but, here I go again. We are hearing Hillary and Bernie braying at each other over 'qualifications.' Let me make this clear. No one is qualified to be President of the United States.

There are no training progarms and no college course to prepare you to take on that role. Many who run are lawyers but legal training, at best, may help you think logically but emotions are a big part of running this strange Country. It is useful to know History but there are problems with that. There are many interpretations of history. Hell, there many versions of any historical incident and, often, a President does not have time to sort thorugh the whole mess. Besides, sometimes, new stuff happens.

In this day and age, a knowledge of Science should be of use, but I will wager that, with the exception of Jimmy Carter, who was trained in Nuclear Physics, most Presidential candidates would have to struggle to understand Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Military experience seems to be a commonly excepted criterion. Well, let's see. Bill Clinton had none. GW Bush had next to none and Obama had none. Trump has none. Sanders has none. Hillary definitely has none. Same with Cruz and Kasich. It seems that military experience no longer matters. It is worth noting, however that Eisenhower, the 20th Century President with the most Military experience is the guy who warned us about the expanding power of the militray-industrial complex. He was right and we ignored him.

So, who mught be a truly qualified Presidential candidate. It would have to be someone who is trained in all areas of human knowledge and is able to look at the whole picture and see how everything fits together. In my lifetime, I can think of only one such person, the late, great R. Buckminster Fuller. Fuller thought of himself as a throwback to days past in that he was a generalist, Rather than focusing on one area of knowledge, he looked at the whole. Schools today do not turn out students like that. It is a shame that Bucky never ran, although I am sure he would not have been elected. He simply was not glib and flashy enough. In America, style too often beats substance.

So who among our present crop and candidates is qualified? Not a one. Bernie and Hillary and all the rest need to sto picking at each other about that and take long looks in the mirror.

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