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On Government II






The setting:  The government is an enterprise of millions of employees, led by politicians, who really don’t know how to do anything.  Below them are political appointees, sometimes skilled at something different and at a vastly smaller scale.  Below them are civil servants, who function as highest level operational administrators.  They are normally paid substantially less that commercial counterparts.  Thus, not the highest quality folks are retained.  Below them are the midlevel administrators whose abilities range from very good to terrible, biased toward the lower end.  Since they have total job security, there is little incentive to perform well, even if they could.  This higher level structure diffuses to the entire government enterprise.  Making it bigger will simply require hiring more lower-quality administrators entrusted with higher-level functions.  Will not work.


Government service summary:
At the higher levels: fish out of water
At the lower levels: fish that can’t swim.
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We are witnessing and are participants in the complete government absorption of the citizenry to some postmodern vision.  It seems to be essentially a non-human super-agency, without sensitivity to the maintenance and long term health and well-being of the populace.

1. The government essentially views itself as if in a cocoon isolated from the world.
2. It is blind to external threats.
3. It assumes that whatever it does, prosperity will sustain. 
4. It cannot comprehend public deterioration from within, whether spiritual, moral, or financial.
5. It views every social or fiscal problem has a regulatory solution.
6. It believes the country it inherited can be fundamentally changed, and vastly improved within its vision.
7. It reacts to problems with solutions without consideration of unintended consequences.  Basically, it treats a symptom of a problem, leaving the problem intact.

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In brief, this monolithic, almost all powerful government seems to be rather naive about the nature of the people it governs.



Gettysburg revisited: Mover over Abe!  It’s official: “Our government by the people, for the people, and of the people…” has been tidied up.  Now it’s “Our government to the people… .”  Said an administration spokesperson, “The original version was too complicated for people to understand.  We have simplified it.  This change will be reflected on all government instruments including the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.”
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