Comments on: A Country of 90,000 Governments

By: David Locke

David Locke — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:01:16 +0000

The simplicity of the language used in laws can still hide the purpose of the law. A Texas constitutional amendment was phrased as giving the State the ability to determine what Gulf beaches were public. Sounds good, but ALL Gulf beaches are already public. So they really meant to determine what Gulf beaches would be private. It’s a matter of context, and absent that context, the language is just cover.

Let’s face it anarchy and poverty are the current aims.

By: Ray Hutchins

Ray Hutchins — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 02:22:16 +0000

Tom:

I think you have articulated the righteous components of the rebellion seething in the land. The people have correctly intuited that their government is out of control, but they don’t know exactly how it has become so.

Thanks for your analysis. I’ll do my bit to spread it around.

By: Isaac

Isaac — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 01:25:18 +0000

How about expiration dates on all laws requiring periodic renewal for everything? I also like the idea that all laws that will cost money need to include the funding source required for the added enforcement at least. I also like the idea of unbundling laws so that we can have our representatives vote on clean measures. Some would argue that politics requires compromise and unbundling techniques like the line item veto remove the necessary ability to horse trade or puts too much power in the hand with the veto stamp. Perhaps another unbundling mechanism would be better.

By: Rebecca Young

Rebecca Young — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:53:15 +0000

Brilliant!! Thank you for taking the time to think about this huge problem and find a potential solution. Strong and intelligent vision is a rare quality that only true leadership can provide. It is indeed mind boggling as you have described, what we are dealing with now in government.

Finding the remedy for the disease, Dr. Tom, is a good beginning, now just getting the patient to take it illustrates just what or who we are really dealing with, as all levels of consciousness are exhibiting here. The disease of too much law has mutated, morphed and spread into the private sector, turning up for example, as hoarding where individuals are dumbfounded as to how to deal with excess stuff, while corporate interests dizzy themselves by continuing to hang on to outdated models of unnecessary expansion, while the earth is moving beneath them. Winding down the process of collapse of empire will break through the powerful control system of moneyed elite, only by gaining their willingness to take a rest and cooperate. It may require a tranquilizer given where they aren’t looking and I can’t say what that would look like, except that management has become a burden when technical expertise has been the medicine. Some of these controllers are unconsciously driven and only motivated by their unique belief system of greed, which ultimately is metaphorically ,described as, “to get the best bang for the buck”.

The BP oil spill is a supreme example of the continued insanity of government, as it stands by while the planet undergoes a severe and radical environmental holocaust, as a result of control mechanisms based in excess, that no longer serve the greater good if indeed they ever did. I like to think they had their day in the sun. But now their day is done. Meanwhile comatose couch potatoes are waiting for their next IV of toxicity that may just bring this final hour to an end. Good luck, your operating room is ready, and your waiting room is full!! A few words by Wordsworth for the changing times,

“Though nothing can bring back the hour
of splendor in the grass, the glory in the flower,
we will grieve not, rather find strength
in what remains behind.”

By: Roland U. Straub

Roland U. Straub — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:50:50 +0000

Tom,
I believe that you put your analytical finger on a very sore issue; one that is debated by many intellectuals interested in the fiction of an open society. As an early example I’d like to point to Juergen Habermas’ genesis of the ‘public sphere’ – as a necessary counterweight to political authority – in his early work: The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Political Authority represented in 90,000 governmental bodies is a problem per se, but it is the inflationary character of the ensuing rule making that stifles innovation, intellectual re-tooling and private inititiative.

I like your suggestion for laws and regulations to go through a more accountable and radically simplified process – however, realistically I have to resort to Churchill’s famous saying: “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”

By: Dale B. Halling

Dale B. Halling — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:51:36 +0000

Tom,

Great points.

By: Vince Emmer

Vince Emmer — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:11:16 +0000

Tom, I’ve enjoyed your emails and several of your firm’s seminars. I especially enjoyed the above piece.

For another measure of governments’ impact on your personal life, check out https://www.mygovspending.com/beginners/new.