GOVERNMENT
‘Competence trap’ is a reality in all plans
The David Brooks column (“Power to heal U.S. ills needs dose of reality,” Opinion, Sept. 19) hits the nail on the head. We have a populace that is collectively in denial about the role and effectiveness of government.
Besides the “planning fallacy,” another common root cause of program failure is the “competence trap.” Businesses seldom fall prey to a “planning fallacy,” but sometimes do not have the competence to carry out their plans.
In contrast, the “competence trap” is a reality in all government plans — assuming that a plan gets completed at all.
Len Cayce, Suwanee
CLIMATOLOGIST
Governor’s action will have no benefits
Replacing Georgia’s longtime climatologist at the University of Georgia with an underfunded meteorologist in the state’s Environmental Protection Division is a shameful demonstration of political power by Gov. Nathan Deal (“Office switch could be costly,” News, Sept. 17).
There are no apparent benefits that can result from this action. The most likely result will be interruption of the long-term monitoring information that is needed by the agricultural industry at a time when extreme droughts and floods are becoming more problematic to the production of food and fiber.
Apparently, the governor does not accept the “inconvenient truth” of climate change — and, of course, it will be much easier to control the message from EPD under his direct control than from the state’s flagship university, where they present the unadulterated facts by recognized experts.
Jerry Stober, Carrollton
POLITICS
For society at large, tea party goals impossible
I confess, the tea party has a corner on great slogans.
Their values all but write their slogans, which are old-fashioned American ideas. You can smell the apple pie between the words — even if it’s a little moldy.
The problem is that their goals are impossible nowadays for the society at large.
The U.S. is no longer an isolated nation. The nation is no longer a basically homogeneous group.
Isolationism is out of the question. We are inextricably bound up with each other and other nations, as Sept. 11 and the current global financial crisis prove.
The tea party offers not real policies, but panaceas. It shrinks from taking on the complex reality of modern life — offering instead a looking backward to when rugged individualism and a sealed economy seemed to preserve us.
Only a party that acts as though it is ready to look forward shows courage and grit, and should attract our attention. I already have a crick in my neck just trying to sort through the tea party’s 1776 ethos.
Ricks Carson, Atlanta
