opinions-political-whatIWouldDoIfIWerePresidentOfTheUnitedStatesOfAmerica-preface

What I would do if I were the President of the United States of America

by Bayle Shanks

Preface

About this book

This is a work in progress.

This is a short book on what I would do if I were the President of the United States of America.

I am not running for office. However, although it is unlikely, I would like it if a candidate would adopt the guidelines in this book. It would be best if the candidate would openly state, as a pledge, which guidelines from the book they were and were not adopting. In this way other people could "keep him honest" by encouraging them to adhere to their pledge.

I think it would be great if many people would write books about what they would do if they were the President. It would be great if politically-oriented groups of people would collect their favorite lists of suggestions and publish composite books, for instance, if the Republican party published "What a Republican would do if she (or he) were President".

Since all of these books would be based off of each other, and all would be written in the style of this one, they would be forced to take specific stands; if one group was less specific than another, it would be obvious to everyone.

So they are easy to find, I will put the specific suggestions after a bullet point

This book is copyright Bayle Shanks, however, you may copy it if you follow the terms of the Creative Commons Sharealike license.

What this book is not

This book is not an attack on any particular President. For every President that we have had since I have lived, I have found something to disagree with.

The burden of the President

There is something that should be made clear at the outset. It is hard being the president. If you make a mistake, there are very serious consequences. But a President has so many kinds of responsibilities that it is impossible for any one person to be competent, to be an expert, in all of them.

And sometimes it is hard to tell what's a mistake; sometimes, 50% of the people will be very mad at you if you do one thing, while the other 50% will be very mad at you if you don't. Sometimes, thousands of people's lives will be ruined no matter what you choose to do.

Every President is incompetent at some aspect of the job. Every President makes horrible mistakes and ruins people's lives. Every President is hated and is made fun of.

It is easy for me to write this book. I am sure that if I were actually the President, I make just as many mistakes, and be hated just as much (and probably more than) all of the other Presidents.

There are many things that I have seen our Presidents do that I think are dumb. There are many things I have seen them do that I think are unethical. There are many things that I have seen them do that have needlessly ruined people's lives, due to sheer incompetency with regards to a particular aspect of their job. If I were President, I would certainly not make those same mistakes. But I would make other mistakes.