ON FIXING THE GOVERNMENT... OR AT LEAST MAKING IT A LITTLE BETTER. By P.J. O'Rourke
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Government “reform” is something we hear a lot about and always have. Let’s quit listening... The guiding principle of government is to exercise power over the governed. The driving force of government is to acquire more of that power. No “reform” is going to eliminate these governmental mainsprings. We can, with our electoral powers, limit government. We can, with our Constitutional rights, resist government. What we cannot do is reform government in the dictionary definition sense of “reform”... to make better by removing faults and defects. Government is a fault and a defect.
In a perfect world, where mankind is good and the universe is beneficent, there would be no need for government. That isn’t the world we live in. Mankind being “notso hotso” and the universe being a harsh and unforgiving place, maybe it’s only to be expected that most government reforms make government worse. Consider the following commonly proposed, modest (that is to say, not on the scale of Obamacare) government reforms. Note how they would tend to deform rather than reform our government and our society.
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