There is a time when thoughtful people have to acknowledge that the comfortable assumptions they have been making about how other people are acting must be reexamined.Now is such a time.I have worked in government, and have seen first-hand how job insecurity drives people to accept mediocrity and then stupidity. I have witnessed with astonishment how stupidity ends up making people do exactly the opposite of what they were hired to do, what they say they are doing, and what they really want to be doing.Ultimately, stupidity can lead to perfidy. That is a simple lesson of history. The impulse to "go along to get along" ends up invisibly transitioning people beyond the point where they can legitimately defend the Devil's bargain they are making to protect their personal job security.Take the influence of Islamic radicals on various organs of our government today. It all starts with petro-dollars, of course, but the corrupting influence of such vast wealth is broad and deep in...(Read Full Post)