The most obvious of tells

From The Morning Dispatch: Worth Your Time.  

In a recent Department of Transportation report, Secretary Pete Buttigieg wrote that “zero is the only acceptable number of deaths and serious injuries on our roadways.” Although that sounds nice, it’s obviously not true, George Will argues in his latest Washington Post column, and it’s irresponsible to pretend it is. “The phrase ‘zero tolerance’ (of a virus, or violence, or something) is favored by people who are allergic to making judgments and distinctions: i.e., thinking,” he writes. “There must … be limits to prophylactic measures against even clear and present dangers. Otherwise, public health officials will meet no resistance to the primal urge of all government agencies: the urge to maximize their missions. … When Buttigieg identifies as ‘the only acceptable’ social outcome something that is unattainable, we see how government forfeits the public’s trust. Americans are hitting the mute button on government that calls life’s elemental realities and painful trade-offs unacceptable.”

See the original for links.  

This is one of the more powerful tells of a politician and non-executive.  All effective executives have to make hard decisions and trade-offs.  Any individual, any enterprise, always has multiple valid and worthwhile goals.  And we all live in constrained environments.  We don't have enough time, enough money, enough control, enough certainty, enough influence.  Give the resources we do have, we have to make a series of uncomfortable prioritizations and trade-offs.

Anyone who preaches maximization around a single measure with zero-exceptions, is ignorant, inexperienced or a rogue.  Or all three.  

By offering to have no goal but a single goal, in this case, zero vehicle related deaths, Buttigieg is affirming that he does not care about any other good goals which might involve trade-offs (non-death injuries, fuel efficiency, ease of mobility, shortness of commute times, equal access to private transportation, etc.) which might be appealing to the public.  He is declaring a totalitarian mindset which is inimical to freedom and the rights of citizens.

Obviously, as a political slogan, it works.  But it should not.  It is the most obvious of tells and both the media and the public ought to be alarmed.