From: rja@redwood26.cray.com (Russ Anderson)
Subject: Re: Perot speaks
Originator: rja@redwood26
Organization: The 1991 World Champion Minnesota Twins!
Date: 13 Apr 92 12:44:58 CDT


In article <peercy.702938428@dopey.crhc.uiuc.edu>, peercy@crhc.uiuc.edu (Mike Peercy) writes:
> I am absolutely astounded at the ferocity of the defenses of Perot I
> see.

I can say that my defense of Perot is based on knowing about him for over
10 years, working for him in the mid-80's, and following his dealings with
Texas educational reform and General Motors.  He has earned my respect.

>        Granted, the original Monitor article was highlighted with bias
> and conclusion-drawing, but I think the defenses I've seen here are even
> more revealing of how far away from a Constitutional republic Perot's
> vision is.

I disagree with your assesment that Perot's vision is "away from a 
Constitutional republic".  I would strongly oppose him if I thought
that was his vision.

> Perot is not Hitler.  No one suggested he was Hitler.  He was suggested to
> be Mussolini ("Make the trains run on time."), but I think this would be
> the worst case.  At best, though, he's a tyrant from the days of Greek
> democracy.
> 
> The man talks entirely in metaphor and allegory; and that is very scary,
> for it calls for action for the sake of action.

I disagree very strongly.  I'll admit that going on only the media coverage
since the Larry King show that one could get that impression, but the
impression is misleading.  I have the benefit of having followed Perot's
actions long before he started talking about being president.  I think
he is a man of solid values.  I know from experience he does not call
for "action for the sake of action".  He does follow the engineering 
process of trying altherative and showing demonstratable results before
implementing a plan.
>                                                   And some of the stories
> he's telling have no solution other than terribly unconstitutional and
> otherwise rights-abrogating actions.
> 
> I must admit, when I saw him on 60 Minutes, I liked Perot a lot.  But
> when you get right down to it, he makes no actual suggestions, while the
> things he talks about have no clear solutions but tyrranical application
> of government.

It is interesting that you criticize Perot for making "no actual suggestions"
but then conclude that "the things he talks about have no clear solutions 
but tyrranical application of government."  Interestingly, the Liberterians 
seem to feel that solutions at the things he talks about are possible without 
the "tyrranical application of government."

I think Perot is suggesting a process for dealing with this countries problems.
(I don't think that implies that the only solution to those problems are 
the tyrranical application of government.)  I think it shows that Perot is 
used to having to persuade people, as opposed to dictating solutions.  Perot
could not, and did not, run EDS as a dictatorship.  I know that he realizes
that the country cannot be run as a dictatorship.

> Besides, when you hear him long enough, he starts to sound like someone who
> watches CBS News' "Eye on America" piece every night and then talks about
> it into a microphone.
> 
> But, a more detailed response to Mr. Fierro's post (I've added few lines,
> if you fear the length of the article):
> 
> fierro@uts.amdahl.com (Doug Fierro) writes:
> | GA.JRG@forsythe.stanford.edu (June Genis) writes:
> | >Christian Science Monitor, scheduled to run 4/7/92
> | >
> | >Op-Ed Column on Ross Perot
> | >
> | >By Williamson M. Evers
> 
> |   I have read the C-SPAN transcript that Evers makes refrence to 
> | throughout his article, and he has read a lot into Perot's speech.
> 
> | Perot merely wants the people to be more informed on the issues, and have
> | a hands-on attitute when it comes to making decisions.
> 
> |   I don't see anything wrong with this- in fact I think it will cause
> | more people to become active in this country's political process, and
> | apparently that scares the shit out of some people.
> 
> It scares me that this suddenly gives you a one-voiced media, with that
> voice being the government.  Imagine a nation where the _USA Today_ was
> not only the paper-of-record, but was the primary source of news and
> political opinion for the populace.

I don't think Perot is suggesting that the government become a "one-voiced 
media"

> |   I don't know what the paranoia is from people thinking that Perot 
> | is going to turn this country into another Nazi Germany or some kind
> | of dictatorship.  He has some hard-line views, and maybe that is what
> | is needed to get this country back on the right path, but he is also
> | a stauch supporter of our constitution.  From what he said at the same
> | speech:
> 
> | -----
> |     I make no bones about it, and I think I speak for most everybody here.  I
> |     love this country, and I love the people in this country.  And I love the
> |     principles this country was founded on, and I am sick and tired of seeing 
> |     these principles violated. 
> | -----
> 
> |  ...doesn't sound like a man who is going to plow over people's rights.
> 
> You call this "staunch support of our Constitution?"  This is the same
> vague crap that Bush uses all the time!

One of the problems that Perot talks about is trying to fix complex
answers into little soundbites.  I suggest this is one example.

> |   Unless you are very naive, it is basically a war out there today.
> | I know it doesn't look like that from the reporter's widow who wrote
> | this article, but Perot is not afraid to look and tell the truth:
> 
> | -----
> |     Let's take a hard look at utopia.  We're the largest debtor nation on Earth.
> |     We're the most violent, crime-ridden nation in the industrialized world.
> |     Millions of innocent people have created their own prisons.  They have to 
> |     put bars on their windows, bars on their doors because we've abandoned 
> |     their neighborhoods to crime, and you don't have to go 10 minutes from 
> |     the White House or 10 minutes from the Capitol of the United States to see 
> |     that.  That's inexcusable.
> | -----
> 
> And....  what would he do about it?

Use the engineering process to find a solution.

> |   Here is how Perot himself described his general recipe for solving
> | problems in this country; the following quote was an answer he gave
> | to someone who asked what he would have done to fix an ailing company
> | in the auto industry  (GM) :
> 
> | ----
> |     PEROT:  I don't know.  I'm not close enough to the details.  Let me tell 
> |     you, beware of anybody that gives you simple solutions to complex 
> |     problems.  Anything you want to ask a question about, let's go through the 
> |     engineering process.  Number one, take it to pieces.  Number two, find the 
> |     best system in the world that works, study it, take it to pieces.  Number 
> |     three, get the best people who know that industry.  You say, "No, wait a 
> |     minute, Ross.  Conflict of interest." I say fine.  You ought to have poets 
> |     and economists and lawyers do it?  No.  You've got to have people who 
> |     know the industry.  
> 
> |     [...]
> |     We've got to have strategic plans industry by industry.  There are
> |     industries we've got to keep in this country, and we're losing them 
> |     right and left.  We've got to target them.  They will create millions of 
> |     jobs.  We've got to make sure that we're first and best.  In Japan, that's 
> |     called MITI [Ministry of International Trade and Industry].  Study it, 
> |     analyze it, improve on it, instead of trying to dismantle our companies.  
> |     In Washington, the principal contribution to American industry is to 
> |     try to break its legs every day.
> | -----
> 
> This is NOT the government's job!  It is the corporation's job, for
> goodness' sake.  He sees that the greatest hurdles for corporations
> reside in Washington, but that only implies removing the hurdles, not
> adding boosts to some to the demise of others.

As far as MITI, I can see your concern over government involvement.  What
isn't in this soundbite is that he wants to relax/eliminate anti-trust 
regulations to allow US companies to work together to competes better against
foreign competition. (A direction I think you'd agree with).

> |   Well, let's see what he really said at his most recent speech:
> 
> | -----
> |      We spend over $400 billion a year on education including colleges, yet we
> |      rank at the bottom of the industrialized world in terms of academic 
> |      achievement.  We have the largest number of functional illiterates in the 
> |      industrialized world.  We spend, but, see, we've got all these things 
> |      that don't work for us.  We spend a lot on education that doesn't work.  
> 
> |    [...]
> |      Our educational system has to be the finest in the world.  We know what
> |      needs to be done.  Let's stop reading to children in school.  Let's stop 
> |      having two-day summits for governors that don't amount to anything, and 
> |      let's get down to blocking and tackling and fixing it now because you 
> |      won't have the benefits for 15 to 20 years.  Every day is precious, and 
> |      we just talk about it.
> | -----
> 
> I don't see a suggestion here at all.  What I do see is more empty rhetoric
> than Bush throws out on his most prolific and angry days.
> 
> |   This is just a plain lie.  Here is what he said in that speech:
> | -----
> |     Q:  What is your position on federal gun control?  Do you support the
> |         Brady bill and a ban on assault weapons?
> 
> |     PEROT:  You can't sound-bite this one either.  Now, when I was a boy,
> |     everybody had guns, but we didn't shoot one another.  Right, Sarah?
> |     Now everybody's got guns and they go out and shoot one another.  I grew
> |     up with some tough guys in the Depression.  We didn't carry guns to
> |     school.  A hundred and thirty-five children carry guns to school every
> |     day.  You can't have learning in that environment.  Obviously we've got
> |     to clean this up.  The Brady bill is you register and what have you.
> |     Well, the bad guys--that's not going to slow them down 10 minutes.
> 
> |     [....]
> 
> |     Gun control is a very complex issue, but we've got to think, what is the
> |     objective?  Get the guns out of the hands of the bad guys.  You don't care
> |     if people collect guns.  You don't care if people have guns for hunting.
> |     You care like the devil if somebody's just going to show up on the street
> |     and shoot you because he's bored, and that happens in our country now.
> |     We've got to fix that and fix it now.  That can be fixed, but you can't
> |     fix it ducking it and you can't worry about all these powerful lobbies.
> |     You've got to figure out what is good for the owners of the country and
> |     do it.
> | -----
> 
> |    I support what he says; it makes sense and it needs to be done.
> 
> He didn't talk about anything to do, for heaven's sake!

He'd use the engineering process to find a solution.

> I don't see a suggestion.  All I see is story-telling.  And you can't do
> the things the story talks about without incredible infringements on the
> people's right to own weapons.

Are you suggesting that there is no solution to crime in the streets without
abolishing the 2nd ammendment?  The NRA and Libertarians believe that crime
in the streets can be sustantially reduced without "incredible infringements 
on the people's right to own weapons."

> | >     *on young people who dare to evade compulsory national
> | >service, building roads or emptying bedpans for the federal
> | >government (Perot told Nick Thimmesch in an interview published in
> | >the April 1983 Saturday Evening Post that the U.S. government
> | >should make it a "requirement" that "every 18-year-old" young man
> | >or woman should do one to two years of such work),
> 
> | We already require compulsory national registration of males 18-25 for the
> | selective service.  A lot of other countries have a draft, and we
> | currently don't.  Compulsory national service would not be something
> | new to this country.  And such an act would require approval of the
> | people anyway.
> 
> Oh.  That's nice.  The people who watch "Perot at 6" and then vote at 7.
> That's what's saving us from involuntary servitude to the government?
> 
> Lovely.
> 
> Mike Peercy
> peercy@crhc.uiuc.edu
-- 
Russ Anderson    |  Disclaimer: Any statements are my own and do not reflect
------------------              upon my employer or anyone else.  (c) 1992
EX-Twins' Jack Morris, 10 innings pitched, 0 runs (World Series MVP!)
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