I've heard plenty of youngish people on the left and right talking about how a monarchy or a strongman or a socialist government would be preferrable to the failure we see today.
Meh.
Look, I get it. Our institutions are incompetent, corrupt and ignorant. SciAm is obsessed with race, the American Endocrine Society has been taken over by gender lunatics and the CDC had us wearing masks to stop an airborne virus. They're all guilty as charged.
That's not the real problem, though. From Mark Steyn's upbeat book, After America: Get Ready for Armageddon:
There are many people who can run businesses worth a million dollars. The ability to run a billion-dollar corporation is the province of very few individuals. The skill-set required to run a multi-trillion-dollar enterprise is unknown to human history.
From that same tome, here's a summary of how legislators crafting Obamacare gave authority to the bureaucracy.
(T)he new law contained 700 references to the Secretary (of Health and Human Services) "shall," another 200 to the Secretary "may," and 139 to the Secretary "determines." So the Secretary may and shall determine pretty much anything she wants.
I would bet that our congresscritters in 1824 and 1924 weren't much better than the ones we have in 2024. The big difference the scope of their stupidity and ignorance.
It's not that we need to elect the right people, it's that at the scale of our government's reach, the right people don't exist. We can elect Trump and get a better result than the cadaver-in-chief we've got right now, but it's not going to be that much better. We could have a king, but the king isn't going to be sticking his hands into the details of health care. The problem is that health care and Global Warming Climate Change and racial justice and Medicare Part D should never have been part of the government in the first place.
The Democrats or Republicans could get a massive majority in both houses and in the end it won't matter because like Obamacare, they've sloughed off their powers to the bureaucracy. They had to because what they are trying to do is simply more than anyone can manage.
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| Heavy is the brow that wears the crown. The one that sleeps next to it, not so much. |
Good post. Maybe we should be more like Argentina.
ReplyDeleteMinnesota is effectively run by socialists now. We don't have legislators anymore. We have activists who never did a thing in their lives other than complain. It was an affront to them at the end of the session, that the republicans (as incompetent as they are) wanted to have a say in governing. Why should they be considered at all, wondered the Senate majority leader. After all, the mandate from the masses have spoken. A clear 43-42 majority, means never having to even consider listening to the other sides position on our wonderful bill that no one has read. Don't pay any attention to the senator arrested and charged with B&E, she gets to vote on the resolution as to whether she should be allowed to vote. We'll cast her aside after the session.
ReplyDeleteMinneapolis is dead last in rankings of major metro areas with poeple returning to downtown. People still go to the Twins, the Vikings, and the Timberwolves, but leave immediately after.
Crime is excused away by the county Attorney, and cops are prosecuted for doing their job when a non-compliant criminal with a gun tries to drive off dragging an officer along. The criminal is killed, and they try to make him a martyr. All the leftist's martyrs are criminals in Minnesota.
This is what you get with the socialists. Oh, and the low buzz is the worst Governor in Minnesota history maybe being groomed for President. Trudeau isn't looking so bad now.
Thanks, Chuck!
ReplyDeleteMN, does Minnesota have filibuster rules? Can the Rs do anything at all?
ReplyDeleteAs for no one returning to downtown Minneapolis, don't you think that's all part of the great realignment.
If you don't want to live in a place like that, as I ranted previously, you need to specify where you will make your stand.
The do. However, they destroyed senate rules, ignored senators requests for discussion and introduced a 1000+ page bill with 10 minutes to go before mandatory adjurement. It was a combination of 4 bills that no senator ever saw, even in committee.
ReplyDeleteLaws do not matter in MN if you are a democrat.
Sorry that was me. Probably obvious.
ReplyDeleteAll of that would be fine if their reach and control were 20% of what it is now.
ReplyDelete"The Democrats or Republicans could get a massive majority in both houses and in the end it won't matter because like Obamacare, they've sloughed off their powers to the bureaucracy. They had to because what they are trying to do is simply more than anyone can manage."
ReplyDeleteYou're not wrong as far as that goes. However, an even more pressing incentive for them was to escape political accountability for exercising the powers of their offices, while retaining all the perks attendant upon occupation of those offices.