July 23, 2007
Capacity
As if it were somehow news, we are told that the president has recently been incapacitated, and, of course, that we’re not to worry.
We’ve got this law does our nation that when the president is incapacitated for one reason or another and even if only briefly, the official executively privileged presidential wizardry must be handed over to the vice-president for whatever time is necessary and until presidential capacity returns to the president himself. This law has apparently been used very sparingly over the years. It is probably a good and thoughtful law.
Anyhow, it seems to presume at least three things. One is that there is already present a capacity such that one can tell when it is noticeably or actually jeopardized. Two, this would require, it might seem, someone other than the incapacitated person who can verifiably make such a discernment. The incapacitation in and of itself might by definition make such a time indiscernible by the incapacitated person. A third thing is to presume that the vice-president, perhaps especially the incumbent, once so encapacitated, can reasonably be convinced willingly to become himself decapacitated when this time comes. There’s probably some way to avoid this third possibility, but what if there’s not?
For example, in this exchange of capacities, even if assumed to be only temporary, the vice-president has now become, among other things, the Commander-in-Chief. In this capacity, one might anticipate some reluctance by the vice-president to relinquish such a capacity of chiefness in particular and instead to desire to use it indefinitely and inclusively of other capacities. In order to accomplish this, the new, albeit presumed temporary, C-in-C could call up anything that’s left of the National Guard somehow to prevent any designated capacity-returners from turning the vice-president back into himself.
Such complications obviously seem not only beyond my capacities to resolve, but, I often find, altogether typical of me to create. From time to time and on occasion my Twelve-Step sponsors have often been wont to remind me that this characteristic of mine can lead to dire consequences. But frankly I think that they, themselves, by virtue of their capacity for being sponsors frequently show a capacity for exaggerating if not even overcomplicating things. I could not really depend on any of them to determine whether I might, myself, be incapacited. Right?
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