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Comment by vacri | Hacker News Reader

The counterpoint is, however, that the 'risk' is real: while most parents wouldn't hold the ministry accountable for minor risks, 'most' is not 'all'. They're doing CYA for a reason, not because they get jollies from it.

It's the same reason why politicians say nothing of substance anymore. In the olden days, the occasional slip-up would slide. These days if you say the wrong thing, you can spend weeks or months defending it, and it can even cost you your job.

It's not just a case of 'bureaucracy gone crazy', but also of 'we demand too much of them'. The stereotypical example is that teachers used to just teach, and now they need to be nurses and social workers as well.

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> In the olden days, the occasional slip-up would slide. These days if you say the wrong thing, you can spend weeks or months defending it, and it can even cost you your job.

I think Trump is proving you wrong.

But I get your point, the risk is really because a few people are idiots with too much powers to break things.

We see the same things with the medical personal: they get very cautious and conservative because they are held accountable when something goes wrong, whether it's their fault or not.

But then forbidding idiots to have power would not be very democratic wouldn't it ?

I was really into the parent comment then yours just grabbed it right by the thoughtful response.

Trump isn't really proving me wrong. He made a lot of promises. He's completely unable to get any of them done; he's a completely ineffective politician. He's alienated his own staff and political allies. He won't survive the next election, and doesn't even want to. He doesn't care to stay, and without impeachment, there's no way to remove him. Total amount of elections won = 1, total amount of 'stuff done' = 0.

Trump doesn't care about keeping his job or doing his job and he effectively can't be fired (which is rare for most positions). If you don't care about those kinds of ramifications, then you don't need to defend your slip-ups. He really is an atypical case here.

> He really is an atypical case here.

Not in my experience.

I France we have politicians lying, cheating and even being condemned coming back all the time.

You don't even need to go as far as France. RI and NJ do that too.

> You don't even need to go as far as France.

The implication in the comment above is that he's already in France. So going to RI or NJ would be going further.

'coming back' means they lost their job at some point. And Trump hasn't 'come back', because he's still in his first ever term as a politician (and it's extraordinarily difficult to fire him - a US president has literally never been successfully impeached, though one retired to avoid it possibly happening). I also never said that this was an ironclad rule and that you were permanently dismissed from your position, never to return again in your lifetime. But if you do lose your position, it's far from guaranteed that you'll get it back; it's a considerable risk to lose it, hence folks in authority play it safe.

Are you saying though, that France has not seen politicians and other positions of authority say less of substance than in past decades? That they're not watching their tongues any more than they used to? That errant comments aren't taken out of context by the public and used to vilify the person who said it? Well, more power to you; the rest of us should be so lucky - all over the anglo world, this pattern has been noted, rising with the 24-hour news cycle (which rewards 'gotcha!' journalism).

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