And, I would add, another example of how elites use bureaucracy to their own ends and achieve/maintain special status.
Hey, Canadians: stop me if you’ve heard this one:
The plate program started in 1978 with the seemingly unobjectionable purpose of protecting the personal addresses of officials who deal directly with criminals. Police argued that the bad guys could call the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), get addresses for officers, and use the information to harm them or their family members. There was no rash of such incidents, only the possibility that they could take place.
Needless to say, the Law of Unintended Consequences kicks in…
Meanwhile:
The average private-sector worker, who enjoys a lower salary and far lower retirement benefits than New York or California government workers, will have to work longer, retire later, and pay more so that his public-employee neighbors can enjoy the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.
The taxpayers will also have to deal with worsening public services, since there will be less money to pay for things that might actually benefit the public. (…)
Bigger government means more government employees. Those employees then become a permanent lobby for continual government growth. The nation may have reached critical mass; the number of government employees at every level may have gotten so high that it is politically impossible to roll back the bureaucracy, rein in the costs, and restore lost freedoms.
People who are supposed to serve the public have become a privileged elite that exploits political power for financial gain and special perks. Because of its political power, this interest group has rigged the game so there are few meaningful checks on its demands. Government employees now receive far higher pay, benefits, and pensions than the vast majority of Americans working in the private sector. Even when they are incompetent or abusive, they can be fired only after a long process and only for the most grievous offenses.
It’s a two-tier system in which the rulers are making steady gains at the expense of the ruled. The predictable results: Higher taxes, eroded public services, unsustainable levels of debt, and massive roadblocks to reforming even the poorest performing agencies and school systems. If this system is left to grow unchecked, we will end up with a pale imitation of the free society envisioned by the Founders.
***
Wake up, people: the unelected entrenched bureaucracy is the problem. You are focused on electoral politics and polls and races ridings and all that crap, but that doesn’t matter — the rules are made and enforced, and the nation destroyed, by bureaucrats.
When you busy yourself with the political pornography of who the next leader will be and what they said in their speech, you are indulging in a barren, autoerotic waste of time.
You’re focused on Punch and Judy — instead of the invisible guy with his hands up their asses.
Stop looking through the wrong end of the telescope, and kidding yourself that you’re engaged in some kind of useful, fruitful activity.
The bureaucracy and its rules must be destroyed, and unless a politician is dedicated to helping do that, then they don’t matter because they don’t get it.
