I can’t say that I disagree with your assessment of the government, but I don’t think your solution is practical.

Let’s assume that there IS a “fix” for the government (which, as you say, you and I don’t know). To refuse to move forward on more pressing matters until that is implemented doesn’t make sense. If there is such a fix, it’s not an overnight, flip-a-switch type of fix. Do we stop funding the wars until we know the government won’t foolishly waste money or lose pallets of cash? That’s a bad idea, even given the proven assumption that funding the war WILL result in the government wasting some money.

The only middle ground is something like “well, we will keep funding the important stuff, but we will stop funding the not-important stuff”, but that gets us back to the same problem . . . what the word “important” applies to. That’s not a failure of the government structure, but a natural disagreement in a democratic society. I don’t think everything the government does is important or necessary, but if the people elect representatives that vote for it, then my opinion was considered and rejected, and I’m stuck with that.

Getting more “meta” with the problem, making a lean, mean efficient government machine raises a host of problems. The founding fathers designed the government to be in some manner self-defeating, specifically to limit its damage-causing potential. Between inefficient and dangerous, they chose inefficient as the lesser of two evile . . . amd I can’t say I disagree with that. Just read the comments here and elsewhere. Both liberals (last administration) and conservatives (this administration) worry that the government is barreling down the path of societial destruction . . . and that’s WITH it’s basic inability to accomplish much of anything. Imagine what would happen if things ran smoother and faster.

Compare the issue to automobiles. They are actually stunningly inificient contraptions. For example, it decelerates by wasting all of its kenetic energy (converting it to heat via the brake pad). It would certainly be more practical to do it by some other method, such as using the kenetic energy to power a storage cell, slowing the vehicle and then re-using all that energy. Perhaps re-designing the thing from the ground up would be a good idea . . . but deciding not to take any steps toward managing automobiles until a “perfect” redesign is completed would be foolish and dangerous. No need to worry about fuel economy standards or safety standards . . . why bother until we have all new designs?

Certainly “fixing” the government is an admirable long-term goal. But there are short-term things that need addressing at the same time, and ignoring them just doesn’t strike me as wise.

How sad.

Won’t find me shedding any tears. They inflicted George Bush on us for eight years so of course the answer to the mess they made is to give them the reins again so they can “fix” it? Ha. We’ll lose seats in 2010 then we’ll crush them in the next presidential year.

Moose & Squirrely/2012

Obama has tried to argue that this take is “cynical”, but so what? Cynics are often right. And this is why Randian stuff is so popular nowadays (even though I’m not personally a big “Objectivism” fan myself).

Sure, there are many selfless heroes in public service, but simple statistics show that there are not enough of them to offset the massive waste and corruption in the system.

This is the reality on the ground, not just at the federal level, but at the state and local level too.

I suppose Rick’s blog is an “idea blog”, but beautiful ideas aren’t worth diddly-squat if they can’t be implemented.

If you want my idea on this, it’s that government needs a massive restructuring. Currently, it’s organized in a fashion that would be familiar to Teddy Roosevelt’s bureaucrats, while organizational structures in other areas of life are completely different.

I’m not enough of a wonk to know the solution, but there’s definitely a systemic management problem at all levels of government, and until this is addressed, normative arguments about what it should do are irrelevant.

“Many people are scared to have their belief system questioned and take it very personally.”

That I’ve never understood (although I agree it is certainly true). If your belief system can’t stand up to questioning . . . why do you believe it in the first place? And just because I believe “x” doesn’t prohibit me from understanding why some people believe “y” (even if I don’t).

I have religious faith, but I certainly understand why athiests believe the way that they do. I don’t agree, but they aren’t crazy . . . and my daddy raised me tough enough that someone telling me “you’re wrong” doesn’t reduce me to crying in the corner.

@FT:
“I believe the New Left, the spawns of neo-Marxist Critical Theory are *NOT* children of the Enlightenment as were say the New Deal Liberals but a different species of political animal.”

Of course you do. Life is so much easier when everything is pure black and white, isn’t it? The soldiers for Truth and the drooling, gibbering demonic legions that want to drink human blood as they rub their hand maniacally in smoky rooms plotting how they can be more evil today than the last.

Ah . . . to be 12 years old again.

Remember FT — all liberals believe exactly the same thing, behave in exactly the same way. They all march in lockstep, one monolithic entity deviod of individual thought. They pass their secret manifesto to each other carefully, so as not to arouse suspicion, its hypnotic words draining all who read it of identity.

And then the C.H.U.D.s came . . .

And honest-to-God, I don’t even know what you’re talking about with your Marxist Critical Theory. Me? I’m a capitalist.

Thirty years of people like Limbaugh and Hannity telling them that it’s all some one else’s fault, the hippies lost the war, the Mexicans have our jobs, the gays want your kids, have set their opinions into cement.

Their heads have turned to rock and no facts known will sway their opinion that liberals are worse than the clan, we all hate our country and that only Republicans are fit to run it.

It’s well known I will never, ever vote for a Republican because I really don’t like their politics. But with few exceptions (George Bush being a massive one) I can live with the times they win at the ballot box because the political process usually stops the most egregious excesses in either direction.

This time around the conservatives have decided that not only is Obama a liberal, he is a demon unfit to hold the office. The belief in the danger to the country of ObamaHitlerMao is serious and dangerous in a way it’s never been before.

The rise of the militias again is one sign of trouble to come. Tim McVeigh sized trouble.

Well!

The New Deal was about as close to actual, real socialism as America ever got. Not only did the government provide direct employment to millions of people through the WPA, CCC, CCC, and so forth, during WWII Roosevelt actually took over about 1/2 of the economy.
He dictated to Detroit what they could produce; tires, nylons, sugar, wood, and paper were rationed; over a third of the nations workers were unionized; The national debt rose to over 100 percent of the gross domestic product, a level never seen before or since; Marginal tax rates were in the range of 80% for top earners.
The New Deal assumed a degree of government intervention in the economy never before seen outside of Bolshevik Russia.

And these dangerous radical “New Leftists”?

Basically, Obama has proposed programs that are more conservative than Truman;
Obama is proposing a health plan more limited than one proposed by Richard Nixon;
Obama is proposing tax rates lower than Dwight Eisenhower.

So please, tell us what radical leftist programs or policies are being proposed by Obama.

Show me some radicalism.

I’m a liberal — certainly by your standards.

I’m 55. My father was a 20 year soldier, bronze star, two tours in Vietnam.

I’ve worked full time since I was 16.

I’ve been married to the same woman for 30 years, we have two kids. A 12 year- old who is our biological son, and our 9 year-old, an adopted daughter from China.

I work hard, so does my wife, and because of our work dozens if not more people have jobs. I pay my taxes. I obey the law — except for the occasional speeding. I live in a very Republican neighborhood, keep my lawn mowed. I help my kids with their homework. I teach them to love their country.

The other day my daughter and I had some alone time in the car when I had to — not for the first time — try to explain how it wasn’t her birth parent’s fault they’d abandoned her, but a result of a very evil man named Mao, and a government — not a people — who did not believe in freedom.

If you were 14 and read my books you’d find evidence that I am tolerant of gays, intolerant of bigots which I suppose is “liberal.” You’d also find that I treat people of faith with respect, that one of my most admired characters is a young capitalist who creates a gold-based currency in this dystopian world of mine, and because of his belief in basic capitalism, manages to feed a population.

The other liberals I know are much of a kind. We take our kids to soccer practice, most of them go to church, some are New Age goofs, most are Catholic or Jewish.

I’m not sure where you find these crypto-Marxists of yours. I’m a real person, living in the real world, with real beliefs, and real problems, and a real job, and a real love for my country. And yet here in Rick’s domain I’m one of the people most likely to disagree with you.

And honest-to-God, I don’t even know what you’re talking about with your Marxist Critical Theory. Me? I’m a capitalist.

I believe the New Left, the spawns of neo-Marxist Critical Theory are *NOT* children of the Enlightenment as were say the New Deal Liberals but a different species of political animal. Marxist Critical Theory is so critical because it wipes away all those moralistic liberal shibboleths, alongside conservative moral moorings. The new leftists have learned lessons from the leftists who admired communist totalitarians in the 1930s-1960s and since have infused elements of radicalism into the US body politics. This fact is both a large reason for the ugliness of American politics (”politics of personal destruction”) and a source of confusion by the right. It is now further muddling things, because the old-fashioned liberals start sounding like cultural conservatives -worried about antique ideas like the community, moral values, and civilizational coherence.

I shake my head at the well-meaning status quo Republican types (Whether Rick Moran or GWB) who ‘dont get it’, who don’t get the ideological core that animates the left, and think bi-partisanship is possible with such folks. How can you work with people you dont understand?

Maybe Rick will play his good-conservative bad-conservative routine, and write up a “Bad Liberal: Saul Alinsky” article and answer the question: “How much has Saul Alinsky influenced Barack Obama?”