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Politics : The Trump Presidency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (341492)	7/17/2025 4:19:02 PM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Recommended By longz Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 363282

People like you worship what you refer to as Great Men. Who need to think there are those who are superhuman among us. And, if they attach themselves to them, that greatness will rub off. It is fair to say that I worship no one and no thing. But I do believe some people have extraordinary abilities to do essential things like raise money and allocate resources, lead people to become highly productive, analyze and value risks, and other things which will lead to an accumulation of wealth while maintaining high standards of competence and respect and other essential features for great leaders. And these characteristics may lead to great wealth over time. The pinnacle of that ability has been seen in Steve Jobs, in Musk, and a few others in the last few years (e.g., Larry Ellison, Sam Walton, etc. If you wanted to count politicians there are a few like Churchill and Reagan, and the jury is out on Trump (the Middle East accomplishments, if they come together, could put him in that list). These abilities are rare and I do admire those who have these abilities. What kills me is you want to pretend it is a meritocracy. The world isn't a meritocracy. But at these levels, yes, it is. Some people are just more capable than others. Musk and Jobs aren't like other people. In the same way that Einstein wasn't like others, or before him, Newton or Michaelangelo. This isn't complicated. We can't all be them. The very nature of the accomplishments separates them from everyone else. I can respect the fact that you may have different views on this and perhaps you believe the city of Memphis is full of deserving people who just never had a chance. My view is that most truly great individuals make their own chances. As to having been born into such greatness it, I really don't know of any one was, of the top of my head. With enough time, I suppose I could think of an example.