Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Once again, America is still here. I guess the Peter Principle explains our situation as the founders seemed to understand that.

Once again we come to the anniversary of the founding of this grand experiment we call America. This is an election year, and those of who who can still think have thoughts of dread at who will be our elected representatives come January of 2025.

Still, we seem to get by pretty well. Given all those folks who want to sneak into America from other places, we must be doing better than those other places.

The Peter Principle states something about folks rising to their level of incompetence and then making a mess of things. We get by, say the explainers of the principle, because there are enough people in the system who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. They are wildly competent and do great jobs.

The founders of America must have known something about the principle as they created a system of government that has a lot of people working here and there. With so many people working in so many places, there are plenty of folks who are still wildly competent.

Oh, another note about the founders and our system of government. Our current system is the second try at a central government. The founders first try at a central government failed miserably. Remember the Articles of Confederation? Not many people do. It is also unfortunate that not many people remember the US Constitution. Still, there are enough who do to keep this thing humming along.

So, happy birthday America. Let’s cruise through this year’s elections with the satisfaction of knowing that there are so many elected representatives than many are still wildly competent, and those representatives represent a group of folks where the majority are still wildly competent as well.