Intelligence and Functioning

F Scott Fitzgerald wrote, in The Crack Up, a collection of essays, notes and letters, that the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

Alas, we currently have a collection of federal and state politicians who can hold opposed ideas but without retaining the ability to function.

One look at the WA shenanigans over the attempts to remove democratic provisions in the forced local government saga, shows that both Barnett and Simpson hold opposed ideas on democracy and local government.

At the federal level, Tony Abbott and Chris Pyne clearly hold opposed ideas on truth and government, in bare-faced denial even when faced with documented evidence of what they have said.

The pity of it is that none of these gentlemen (and I use the term with more than a hint of sarcasm) retains the ability to function - and that costs all of us dearly.