Giving Government A Bad Name
Posted by hope on November 28, 2007
Sometimes you have to wonder if the conspiracy theorists aren’t onto something. Governor Perry’s office is trying to avoid an open records request by charging the requester out the wazoo. Granted, the guy making the ask is asking for a lot of information in order to make a point – but its a damned good point. And in any case, limiting access to public information on the basis of ability to pay plays right into the notion that government is untrustworthy, trying to hide something and dismissive of the public’s right to know what’s going on. Surely someone in that office has better political sense than this. (Nora, please help these people!)
Do Republicans make their candidates for office take some secret oath that if elected, they will do their level best to make government look foolish, inept and otherwise untrustworthy?
Hat tip to Off The Kuff.
John Washburn said
RE:Do Republicans make their candidates for office take some secret oath that if elected, they will do their level best to make government look foolish, inept and otherwise untrustworthy?
Government IS foolish, inept and otherwise untrustworthy.
I think you have the process backwards, it is contact with government and going native which makes people weilding coercive become foolish, inept and otherwise untrustworthy.
Whether it is Hillary Clinton scamming her law partners, Linda Lamone telling Maryland voter that those fancy touchscreens are not computers, Mike Huckabee smashing (literally smashing) government computer hard disks because the contain “personal and private” information, it all springs from the same corruptiong well: POWER. The power to tell people do it my way or I will hurt you. In otherwords coercive power.
hope said
John, I love what you are doing. As a Texan and someone who is concerned about transparency, I thank you so much for your time and effort on this. Many complain but few act.
I disagree that government is inherently inept, etc. I have worked in Texas government, both in the Legislature and for an agency, and have known plenty of smart, capable, quite amazing people who work really hard to make good policy decisions and implement policy effectively. Not everyone in the government should be there, certainly, and people do sometimes become more interested in power than the public good. But the broad brush you use doesn’t paint a picture that reflects my experience.
John Washburn said
We can agree to disagree on this point.
My view is Power corrupts and the corrupted act foolish.
To expect otherwise to expect to swim in the desert. It can happen (Arroyos in a storm will kill you), but it is an infrequent and transient thing.
John Washburn said
Government (more generally coercive power) has only four tools in its tool box; eight if you count the duals.
1) It can kill you (Dual: It can threaten to kill you)
2) It can exile you; internally in jail or externally at Botany Bay. (Dual: it can threaten to exile you)
3) It can confiscate your wealth and property. (Dual: it can threaten to confiscate your property)
4) It can give you the wealth and property confiscated from others. (Dual: It can promise you the wealth and property of others)
There is VERY sharp limit on the “GOOD THINGS” you can do with tools as evil as these eight.
hope said
You certainly have a point of view on this, don’t you?
John Washburn said
The question though is my take on government power correct or incorrect? The answer matters.
Working hard to set good policy in the legislature presumes my assessment of power is incorrect. Because working to setting and implementing good policy assumes that government power can do good things has long as the right people with the right vision wield the power properly.
If my assessment is correct, then using evil tools to do good things will always create blowback which overshadows the botched good which might be accomplished.
It would be similar to trying to cut a 2×4 with a hammer. Who is more rational?
The guy saying: “That is the wrong tool for the job. The results will not be good or what you expect.”
The guy saying: “If hammer is wield by the right people with the correct vision implementing the right policy, we can get this 2×4 cut.”
John Washburn said
The above view is also why I am disposed to personal and direct action as in the case with the Governor’s emails.
Requesting the emails was (to me) the most elegant solution to the problem of how to stop the e-shredding. This is in large part because it involved only direct and individual action in order to carry it out.
hope said
I disagree that the tool is inherently evil. Government can – and often is – used to accomplish good things.
Any approach to ordering society and achieving common purpose will only be as good as its implementers. Who is the guy who decides which tool is right for the job, anyway? Some random guy acting individually or someone who at least had to stand up publicly, swear allegiance to some common principles and acts on the authority of the people who are going to build whatever it is we are building with those 2×4s?
John Washburn said
At this point we must agree to disagree.
I think killing and stealing to be evil acts, which are to be comtemplated in only the most dire of circumstances (e.g defense of self and family or starvaton).
This is why my Christian beliefs compel me to view Government as (at best) a necessary evil and to be tolerated among civil society and submitted to only to the extent it restrains evil and punishes wrongdoers.
apc said
I’ve been meaning to chime in here for a couple of days. John, you seem to be saying taxation is stealing. You started out in #4 by merely calling it confiscation, but by #9 it seems to have become stealing. If I’m making an incorrect leap here, I apologize. If however, taxation is stealing, wouldn’t that necessarly mean you don’t agree that there is such thing as the comon good? Other than, say national defense and law enforcement, are you saying it should be every man and woman for him- or herself, and devil take the hindmost? Because that’s the natural conclusion of your argument.
Where I always disagreed with Reagan’s famous staement was with a single word. Government could certainly be A problem, if poorly run (just look at the Bush administration), but government, in and of itself, is certainly not THE problem.
apc said
John, By the way, I appreciate what you’re doing in the name of open government here in Texas. Thank you.
John Washburn said
RE: John, you seem to be saying taxation is stealing
Yes, it is.
What exactly is the more difference between Al Capone’s offer to south side speak easies and that of the IRS? Are not both just variations of “give me your money or I will hurt you”?
We overlook that it is stealing because there is a more dire circumstance which needs addressing; e.g. a common, national defense or the provision of courts. But, it is stealing. This what the founders mean when they speak of government as a necessary evil.
My sending out the IRS after you in order that I can give the money to the local food pantry is an abdication of my duty to provide for the fatherless, widows, and visiting stranger, not a fulfilment of that duty. I am commanded “to do unto the least of these as you would do unto Me”, but I don’t think He command me to violate the commandments to do so.
This why I think using violence and theft as tools will have very limited utility to providing good such as charity, rehabilitation, or comfort to the hindmost. The tool, government poser, is a bad fit for the job. Because of the poor fit, there will always be blowback and unintended consequences.
Now on the matter of punishing murderers, rapists, and thieves, and restaining the commission of murder, rape, and theft, govenment power has demonstrated some utility; especially if the excercise of that power is bound in the procedural restraints such as the rule of law (e.g. English common law, american common law, or traditional law such as the Xeer).
John Washburn said
RE: Texas open government.
Thank you, APC, for the encouragement.
As you can see from the comments in this post on my blog site, there seem to be some vocal Texas who want me to butt out of the affairs of Texas.
But, as one comenter states, I do need to examine the motivations which impelled me to meddle here. “Like the fool who grabs the ears of a stray dog, so is the man who involves himself in strife which is not his own.” [Some liberties with Proverbs 26:17].
I have clearly involved myself in the strife of others for no good reason. But, I am in the deep waters now and the only way out seems to be through.
John Washburn said
I should have known there was a better distillation of the idea that Evil tools have difficulty doing Good.
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.