Posted on 02/13/2010 6:01:07 AM PST by brucek43
The Founders of our Republic did a truly amazing job in the creation of the Constitution. They anticipated the pitfalls of an overly strong central government and those of a nation without a resilient central government.
James Madison, writing as “Publius” in Federalist #10: “The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures.” He obviously did not anticipate the never ending debasement of the Tenth Amendment, but was fully aware of the danger of “factions” (political parties, etc.) and their ability to suborn the common interest to particular interests. He accepted the fact that men would form factions but was convinced that the power delegation between federal and state would alleviate the danger.
He expected “interests” (special interests, in today’s jargon) to form and attempt to use the federal government in support, but believed that these attempts would fail. Events have made it clear he was half right.
George Washington was also clear in his 1796 Farewell Address, regarding “factions”: “Liberty … is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction … and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyments of the rights of person and property.”
“One of the expedients of party to acquire influence…is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other[s]. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart burnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection
(Excerpt) Read more at collinsreport.net ...
“Power attracts the corruptible. Absolute power attracts the absolutely corruptible. This is the danger of entrenched bureaucracy to its subject population. Even the spoils systems are preferable because levels of tolerance are lower and the corrupt can be thrown out periodically. Entrenched bureaucracy seldom can be touched short of violence. Beware when Civil Service and Military join hands.”
Frank Herbert in “Chapterhouse Dune”
We should all tremble as that is the hallmark of totalitarian states. My odds off hope is that the public may still be brought back to understand that the best decisions are those made closest to the source of the problem.
Even those “educated” in government schools can understand that and now see the fruits of the all powerful and all corrupt Federal government.
Part of the solution must be scaling back or eliminating the civil service as a class that is not accountable to anyone.
That would be a function of reigning in the cancerous growth of the Federal government. The breeze is in that direction, but we need a hurricane to actually make it happen.
There is hope.
Do you think the federal bureaucracy is the only one we need to scale back or eliminate?
Most Cabinet departments should be abolished. Social Security was always a Ponzi scheme, as are most "entitlements" We can get there within two generations, and more will than any reasonable person could imagine. We are, perhaps, at the beginning of the beginning...
State and local governments can be as oppressive as the Federal government.
True, and sometimes more stupid, although that is a high bar. It is, however, much easier to hold a county commissioner or mayor to account than some “civil servant” or appointee that, really, cannot be removed. Corzine is gone as he declined to step on the union goons and bloated state “workers’” gravy train. Were he two or three levels removed, he would probably have escaped unscathed and with a COL raise!! If the local taxing office were as arrogant and incomptent as the IRS, it would soon be changed. The IRS remains and grows...
The first thing we have to do is get rid of the civil service at all levels. The voters need to be able to fire their servants, lest those servants become their masters, as they have.
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