NBA vs. Federal Government

I remember when I was in seventh grade. Basketball was the first time in our lives where there were “cuts.” If you weren’t good enough, you didn’t make the team. So of course, I didn’t even try. I was horrible. But lots of kids did try out, and some of them made it, but lots didn’t. That was the very first difficult, but probably necessary step, in getting the best athletes on the court. Those dozen kids who made it were "the best." Of our seventh grade class anyway.

When we moved to high school, we now had several classes competing for the team, so a few more  got cut. After high school, only the very very best could play at the college level. Finally, of all the thousands that played in college, only a tiny fraction made the NBA. I don’t know the exact numbers, but I read somewhere that only .03% of high school players make the NBA, so from those original seventh graders? Very few.

It's a clean, simple, obvious, though sometimes painful method, of choosing the best of the best. Only the extremely talented, the very best of the best of the best, make the NBA.

Now let’s turn to government.

Well, it doesn’t work that way. Oddly, when I was a kid, I just assumed that on some level it did. That every senator, for instance, certainly had to be the smartest of the smart, even if he’s not, compared to the other senators. Kinda like the 10th player on the Cavaliers may not seem very good, but he’s way better than almost everyone else on the planet.

But that doesn’t happen. Getting into politics in Washington depends on intelligence, integrity, and many other good qualities. But it depends much more on how well known you are, how much money you have, who your parents are, or just plain luck.

Was Schwarzenegger really the most qualified to be CA governor? Is Trump the LeBron of politics? Or Al Franken: he was famous from Saturday Night Live. But is he the best possible senator of all the people in Minnesota? Probably not, to all those.

But it doesn’t mean they can’t be good. Sometimes it works, and we get someone who is very good. Of those three mentioned above, you probably have positive views of at least one of them. But sometimes, maybe most times, it doesn’t.

I’m not offering a solution. I don’t know a solution. I just know that the way we do it now is unfortunate and unproductive. I have no training in politics at all, but I’m pretty sure I would be a better congressman than some that I see in Washington. (Or maybe I’m just like the pickup gym player who is convinced that he could beat LeBron 1 on 1 if he just had the chance.) Who knows?

It’s an unfortunate way of doing things. But I do know this. If we had a method of picking our politicians anything like we pick our basketball players, this country would be in way better shape.

I’m guessing this is something we can all agree on.