“”Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” – John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
U.S. radio show host Michael Graham made a powerful argument to Irish listeners recently in this 10 minute podcast.
Fact is, most everything he said could have been presented to a Canadian audience. Why do so few Canadian politicians ever take the time to make the [small-c] conservative argument about how our country would work better with LESS government?!
Why do so few Canadian politicians ever take the time to make the [small-c] conservative argument about how our country would work better with LESS government?!
a) Because it goes against the self interest of politicians to make that argument
b) People simply don’t want less government
less government. heh, there are so many people at the trough in this country the economy would collapse.
Agreed, the trough is a busy hub starting at the lowest level, now even those who “serve” at the municipal level will get a severance packet when they get booted or decide on their own not to run again, just to help them ease back to the real world of employment. This level of government not that long ago was more or less an honourarium now for some who keep running and getting elected it’s become their livelihood.
Aye, indeed.
You want to know why no one ever speaks in favor of smaller government? There’s a reason, and it isn’t just naked self interest.
This story illustrates the reason. I found it mentioned on Kathy Shaidle’s Five Feet of Fury and followed the linkage chain to (I hope) the original news story.
http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/archives/entry/panel_suggests_changes_to_homeschool_oversight/
“Gov. Dannel P. Malloy created the group more than a year and a half ago in response to the murders of 20 school children and six educators at an elementary school in Newtown. He charged the panel— made up of experts in education, mental health, law enforcement, and emergency response — with making recommendations to reduce the risk of future tragedies.
The commission expects to have a final report within the next few weeks. On Tuesday its members reviewed their likely recommendations on mental health during a meeting in the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.
The draft proposals include requirements for individual plans for students with significant emotional or behavioral problems. The group is backing extending those requirements to troubled youths, whose parents have chosen to homeschool.
“Continuation of homeschooling should be contingent upon approval of [individualized education plans] and adequate progress as documented” in progress reports, Susan Schmeiser, a professor of mental health law at the University of Connecticut Law School, said as she summarized the proposal.”
That right there is the machinery for what makes North America, Europe and etc. less free and more regulated every single day.
1-Something bad happens.
2-A panel of “experts” is created to explain/prevent said Bad Thing. The “experts” are obviously friends of whoever is in power that year. They may or may not have to brain cells to rub together.
3-The panel releases a report, said report represents an opportunity to gain resources and credibility for whatever hobby horses or pet projects the panel members may have, so obviously the report features those prominently.
4-The panel report gets taken up by whatever organ of the government is concerned with the type of Bad Thing in question. They create a regulation
5-Our taxes go up to pay for the regulation and its administration.
Rinse and repeat for every “crisis” team, Blue Ribbon panel and Grand Jury in the land.
Its machinery. It eats money and grows. The more money, the faster the growth.
Only solution: TAX CUT. Starve the machine, it shrinks.
That may well be the case with larger city municipal government elected politicians. A great many local urban and rural councilors across Canada basically get minimum wage and receive not one penny when they get booted or retire.
That said, the higher the level of government, the larger the bureaucracy. Some upper level bureaucrats have a vested personal interest in trying increase the size of their department.
In Canada, there is also constant pressure on politicians by activists of various sorts to do more and more. The politicians cave in or cynically push their own ideological political agenda through these activists. This is particularly true of the leftist politicians and red Tories.
The left is strong in Canada and it thinks everyone should be a government worker of some sort with the leaders being more equal than others.
Bang on MikeG81. You nailed it with gobsmacking precision.
As I have been wont to say in these pages over the years, there is simply no measurable constituency for less government.
I’m a life long libertarian who has only recently, at 65, had to admit that libertarianism is sheer silliness.
As I have opined on numerous occasions, small government advocacy is as air-headed as the beauty pageant contestant breathlessly advocating for world peace.
Outspoken libertarians are moral preeners and posers.
Notice that Rand Paul is distancing himself from delusional, utopian libertarians.
And asking a politician to push for less government is as absurd as asking a corporate CEO to look for ways to reduce market share. No politician wants less government no matter what they say on the campaign trail.
When assessing the depth of depravity inherent in any public sector trough guzzler, it is best to recall an old maxim from the soviet era. Those who survived the gulag era of statist socialism in Russia have some crystal clear objective insights into the personality of big government and those who feed on it, but the best I have heard, which explains the soul-sucking malevolence of big government authoritarianism is this –
” a man’s dedication to the socialist state is directly proportionate to his contempt for his fellow man”
When assessing the depth of depravity inherent in any public sector trough guzzler, it is best to recall an old maxim from the soviet era. Those who survived the gulag era of statist socialism in Russia have some crystal clear objective insights into the personality of big government and those who feed on it, but the best I have heard, which explains the soul-sucking malevolence of big government authoritarianism is this –
” a man’s dedication to the socialist state is directly proportionate to his contempt for his fellow man”