Should efficiency be the goal of government? Is government a machine intended to produce a profit? Are citizens shareholders? Of course not. Effectiveness is the only sane measure. Effectiveness doing what? That’s been the debate since government began. The survival of the state, for sure. Then what? Conquest of rivals? Glory of the monarch? Propagation of a creed? Enrichment of a few? Contentment of many?
Jefferson put it this way:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…
Centuries of thought led to this conclusion. To claim that government arose from the people and was not imposed by their betters – and that the people could alter or abolish a government they didn’t like – seemed dangerous crazy talk to kings and their courtiers. The people were not up to such a challenge. They weren’t smart or wise or responsible enough. They were more like sheep or cattle who had to be herded and tended for their own good (and the monarch’s advantage). This radical experiment must fail, wait and see!
One wonders if Co-Presidents Musk and the Nameless One have read this famous sentence (yes, it’s a single sentence – check). Not recently, I’ll wager. What they know is business, a comparatively simple construct. In business, effectiveness and efficiency are pretty much synonymous, measurable by a bottom line. In business, people are functions – labor, capital, management – not souls with varied and complex needs. Business discards those not useful to its purpose – the young, old, frail, sick, and non-compliant. “Taking care of business” means not taking care of those in need.
Tyranny is the organizational principle of business, as of the military. Top down, do as your told. Repeated attempts to make businesses more democratic, worker-governed, “humane,” predictably come a cropper. That’s because democracy is inefficient. There’s no time on a battlefield to form consensuses, which are sluggish and often confused.
Our Co-Presidents seek efficiency at the expense of democracy. They view other nations as rivals, whom they want to defeat. They seek to discard citizens who don’t suit their purpose. They undertake this gallant effort on behalf of “the people,” whom they treat like sheep or cattle. The wealth of the nation should be lavished on those who seize it – it’s only fair.
Will Americans accept their demotion? Will we cheerfully don our shackles and bend to our yoke? Or will we unite to wage a second American Revolution, to preserve the ideal of the first?
Make no mistake: a coup is underway. The Nameless One is following Hitler’s playbook, securing power democratically to destroy democracy. That the American people opted for this result proves how consensuses can be misled.
Like it or not, it’s time to enlist. I’m joining the Thomas Paine Brigade (man, could that guy write!).
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.