Impulse Control

 

Think

People walking around everyday
Playing games, taking score
Trying to make other people lose their minds
Ah, be careful you don't lose yours, oh

Look before you leap.

In 1992, I was appointed by Massachusetts Republican Governor William Weld to be the Director of the Bureau of Transportation Planning and Development of the Massachusetts Highway Department.  Mass Highway is now part of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.  At the time before reorganization, it was only loosely affiliated with the Executive Office of Transportation and Construction, EOTC. The Bureau was on “loan” to EOTC.  My secretaries had two phones, one of which they answered, “Mass Highway” and the other of which they answered, “Executive Office of Transportation”.  My superiors were in the Executive Office and not surprisingly were also Republican appointees. To me, conservatives are believers in the republican form of government outlined in the US Constitution, but have differences from liberals in the size and role of that government.  They believe that since power corrupts, the government should be as small as possible.  They also believe in unintended consequences, that haste makes waste, and looking before leaping. Thus, aversion to power and impulse control.

Authoritarians who are rINOs are seekers of power for themselves and have no impulse control.  I have characterized them as lower case "r" because they do NOT believe in the republican form of government defined by the US Constitution and are thus "republicans In Name Only". Because I was appointed by a Republican, was a white male, was a graduate of Ivy League schools, and had a surname that sounded very much like Republican former President Reagan, rINOs assumed that I was one of them. 

I would like to offer an anecdote highlighting the lack of impulse control of one of my rINO superiors.  One of my managers did something to offend my superior.  She (and this is not a gender characterization.  My superior could just as easily been a male and my conclusion would be the same) demanded that the manager be fired.  I pointed out that the manager had Civil Service status, and his Civil Service position actually had a higher salary than his position as a manager.  If he was “fired as a manager’, then he would revert to his Civil Service status and be transferred at higher pay within Mass Highway.  I pointed this out to my superior, and she realized that her impulse to fire would actually benefit her target.  Instead, she directed me to tell that manager that, as punishment, he was NOT going to be fired and he had to keep working at his current position.  I was delighted to convey this Yogi Berra message, “No one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”.

If this sounds familiar to you, it probably reminds you of Gov. DeSantis and the Florida Republican state legislature cancelling the Reedy Creek Improvement District to punish the Disney Company, only to find out that the state and local governments would then be liable for the bonds issued by the District and for all future costs.  It probably felt good to have the “power” to “punish” Disney, but the impulse came back to bite them.