Nice article! You keep preemptively plagiarizing me. I had an article in the works titled "Trumpism As The Tearing Down Of Chesterton's Fence." So accurate. Very alarming that we have unelected people in a caffeine and Adderall filled sleepless haze erratically slashing government programs based on fifteen second descriptions of what they do.
This is why as a conservative, I feel more and more politically homeless. The left and the right now has a revolutionary zeal to burn down the institutions, the most insane now being the right. It used to be the left that wanted to destroy Chesteron’s fence before finding out why it was there, to be sympathetic to our authoritarian rivals and use state power to control their political enemies. Now the right has become what the left was.
The right is no longer conservative or liberal (in that conservatives wanted to conserve liberal institutions). Illiberalism can be found on the left and the right. I don’t know what to call them other than revolutionary reactionaries, but that sounds like contradiction.
I don't think it is a contradiction. I would consider the "levelers" to be revolutionaries in the sense that they wished to reduce the difference in material conditions between the classes. Yet many of these folks from John Ball (When Adam delved, and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?) on, saw themselves as trying to restore an old order that existed mostly in myth.
Not wanting to be too pedantic, but seems to me that there are two elements to the idea of ‘use’ in Chesterton’s paragraph. First, one needs to consider what the fence is supposed to achieve, and then second, it is important to determine whether or how effective it is. It may be there to prevent my neighbour’s sheep from eating my crops. But it may not be worth keeping if it only covers the road and the sheep walk onto my fields by going around the fence.
In the current situation other factors seem to be driving action. If the ‘modern reformers’ of Mr. Trump’s world have no respect for me or want to do me harm then defining ‘use’ is irrelevant. If they do not care at all for people outside of their own in-group once again ‘use’ is not important. For example, they seem to be immune to stories of hardship and even death they might be causing to people around the world benefiting from USAID support. Or they see nothing at the end of the tunnel other than the light of their own objective, which may be nothing more than all power vested in the hands of one person, so informed discussion of ‘use’ is again of no relevance.
Here's a real-life story, Dan: An English minister of defense went to a military base one day to conduct an inspection, so the Colonel in charge decided to impress him by putting on a fancy display of pageantry, with a 24-canon salute. As the event unfolded, the politician asked the Colonel, "What is that soldier on the field doing?" The Colonel replied, "Oh, he's the 'Fifth Man'!" The politician replied, "Yes, I see that there are five soldiers manning each canon. One funnels the gunpowder down the barrel; one tamps it down; one drops the shot in; and the fourth lights the fuse - all in rapid succession. But the 'Fifth Man' as you call him - what does he do?" The Colonel was surprised at the question; "I don't know, he has simply always been there." So the politician asked the Colonel to investigate and get back to him. It turns out that the Fifth Man is a vestige of the days of the cavalry, when the blasting of the canons would frighten the horses; someone had to hold their reigns so the horses wouldn't bolt away. When the army ceased using horses, the Fifth Man was simply kept, even though he had no function anymore.
Governments become senile the same way people do, through a gradual accretion of small defects that are not repaired, or burdens - deadweights - that are not eliminated. There is no mechanism, such as competition in a free market, to force government bureaucracies to mend their ways, or wind themselves up when their original function no longer serves a purpose. On the contrary, once a bureaucracy has been established, it takes on a life of its own; self-preservation and expansion - "mission creep" - becomes its function.
It could be that the destroyers in the Trump government know more than you do, Dan. It could be that they have read a book or two in the "public choice" school of economics, which posits that public-sector workers and managers are every bit as self-interested as private-sector workers and managers. It could be that they understand how a complex network of civil servants can become opaque to oversight, how a lack of transparency masks waste and corruption. It could be that they realize that at some point even useful fences become so dilapidated and patched over that the only remedy is to tear the whole thing down and start over from scratch. And it could be that they are inspired by the recent example of Argentina. You have heard about Argentina, haven't you, Dan?
In 1900, Argentina was the third most wealthy country in the world, owing in part to its silver mines (hence the name). The people of Argentina thought the wealth came easily and would never end, so they started voting themselves all manner of government benefits based on socialist ideals. It didn't take long before the country was ruined, became a third world backwater, and suffered internal strife for which the military was called in to sort out. But the senility of the Argentine government was not rectified, until Javier Milei came along and took a chain saw to the bureaucracy. To the shock of lefties everywhere, Argentina is once more thriving after less than two years of reforms.
Think back to the days when you were defending Wikipedia against the charge of being "Wokepedia." Remember the "denominator problem"? Sure, you said, anyone can find anecdotes to show that this or that entry in Wikipedia is biased toward the left; but there are billions of entries in Wikipedia! You can't possibly prove anything general about Wikipedia from a few anecdotes - the denominator is simply too big. And besides, just go out and fix the entries you think are biased, and Bob's your Uncle. Remember that, Dan? Well, right back at you: The US bureaucracy is vast, and costs $7trillion each year to maintain. Of course you will be able to find examples where cost-cutting is problematic, but that doesn't prove that the government is well-functioning in general - that large bureaucracies are not senile. And anyway, if "Gaza" errors happen, you can simply fix them, no biggie! Moreover, nobody is stopping bleeding hearts such as yourself from sending condoms over to Mozambique, or donating to private charities to do this kind of work (generally much better than government agencies, for all the familiar reasons that public choice theory lists). In order to criticize Musk, you have a huge denominator problem, Dan.
Good article - hard to disagree. Unfortunately, there's an underlying assumption of some level of rationality for the analogy to work. Not only is this absent, but there is also now an alternative reality that's been created, plus advocates of the approach WANT to believe, no matter what. Facts, nuance, context are all redundant. Even in a more rational world imagine trying to actually tie down and verify anything about this. Musk "I've saved $5 billion so far!". Independent interviewer (assuming this was part of US politics) "How can you verify that figure?' Musk "I said so". Trump "Elon's doing a fantastic job he's saved $10 billion". Reason doesn't work in the current scenario. Hard to know what will at present.
The third possibility is that Musk and co, with Trump’s blessing, are changing how America deals with foreign aid. The idea that the West can save everyone who suffers anywhere in the world is perhaps passé. The West no longer dominates as it once did.
And yet, the idea that the USA needs thousands of nuclear weapons, built to fight a whole Warsaw Pact that vanished 30 years ago, still exists. And that notion is costing the USA vastly more than USAID does.
It's gotten especially wacky now that the Soviets, I mean Russians, are partners in crime, and China can't afford to attack America, the only market keeping her economy afloat.
The attendees of CPAC are not "conservatives". In the same way that attendees of Hitler's rallies were not "socialists". The conservatives in America no longer have a party, they gave it up.
I've been surprised that the many, many commentators on the ripping-up of American government's services, have not once mentioned Chandresekaran's "Life in the Emerald City".
The belief that people will flourish if you remove the "dead hand of government" was already tested in Iraq, over 20 years back. From the Goodreads summary:
" ... details Bernard Kerik’s ludicrous attempt to train the Iraqi police and brings to light lesser known but typical the case of the twenty-four-year-old who had never worked in finance put in charge of reestablishing Baghdad’s stock exchange; a contractor with no previous experience paid millions to guard a closed airport;" (it goes on. and on.)
We now know that they were not being disingenuous, not secretly intent upon destroying Iraq as a functioning country: they're really so deep in the conservative rabbit-hole that they think that most government would never be missed, that all those services that had to be fought into existence were never needed.
(This doesn't apply to policing: no conservative believes police are not needed, that people just naturally behave themselves on the street; they only think people just naturally behave themselves in the market. No need for food inspectors, the Invisible Hand will do! )
I believe the book contains not just the things-they-did, but clear, unambiguous statements from important Republicans about how Iraq would flourish from this fresh start with bureaucracy removed. It distresses me how many people "sanewash" the whole Republican party when they describe Trump as some new thing, a radical change. Trump is very much Bush 2.0; you can find the roots of every Trump "crazy" idea in the Bush administration.
That may help explain why this is not just Trump or Elon Musk, but the whole GOP falling into line behind them, supporting and enabling all of this: it's not rogue, it's long-term Republican belief and stated policy intent. And they never changed it when it didn't work in Iraq.
You're bringing up a temporary-relief organization, for those made homeless by war, into a discussion of a multi-year rebuilding the whole infrastructure of a nation, so that's head-scratching. Think I'll just let it go.
Normal people would expect a relief program for a specific population to be temporary, but UNRWA has been permanent -- and, as we now know, is effectively part of Hamas. Canada has even been a complicit enabler by funding, unwittingly one hopes, viciously antisemitic textbooks for UNRWA schools.
Thank-you for mentioning that book. I've just put a hold on it at my public library. I guess Project 2025 is the latest version of the "long-term Republican belief"?
I gather the "2025" plan was written by the Heritage Foundation, a 52-year-old institution for that party, probably their most famous and largest. Haven't heard much lately from the "American Enterprise Institute", which drew up the similar plans for Iraq that worked out so badly.
So a bunch of Africans will infect themselves with HIV if Musk saves the American taxpayer $50 million and you're trying to play it off as if this is a tough lesson for Musk and MAGA-supporting Americans? Oh no, how ever will we learn our lesson? What laughable, petty, twisted reasoning.
It is “laughable, petty, and twisted” that I take human lives to be of value and deaths matter? Well, ok, it’s true that my reasoning falls apart if in fact you don’t give a shit. I must grant you that.
No, your reasoning is completely illogical. You’re just so wedded to it that you can’t see that. Instead you write an article that contradicts itself….. at first praising the idea of local solutions then insisting that withdrawing top-down foreign aid solutions to local problems is Trumpist evil. It’s one or the other but somehow you like to argue both ways.
I have no idea what you’re even talking about now. My point, with you, was simply that there were other dimensions to the problem which you were ignoring / not even thinking to look for. Reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom of any program, including this one. What I objected to was slashing away without the slightest understanding what you’re slashing. Which is a) pretty simple and b) inarguable.
The main flaw in your thinking is that it overlooks the responsibility Mozambicans have over whether they contract HIV and the lack of it that American taxpayers have. If Mozambicans don't bother taking measures to avoid HIV, then evidently it's not only American taxpayers who regard the matter with little value.
In my piece, I mentioned “WYSIATI.” You are demonstrating “WYSIATI” here: Specifically, you aren’t aware that they take steps to protect themselves from HIV so you take it as fact that they don’t, and draw conclusions on that basis. All assumption. Pure WYSIATI.
It's a matter of responsibility. At least one African country (I don't think it was Mozambique) has acknowledged that they should have taken responsibility for a health program that USAID was funding. As for USAID itself, it is now more widely known that it was closely tied to the CIA and used to gather information and influence populations, whether or not it fulfilled any humanitarian purpose. Aid was not its main purpose.
Read the essay I wrote on the origins of USAID entitled “The Ugly American.” I didn’t argue any specific program must be maintained forever. I argued Chesterton’s Fence, which is pretty darned hard to object, and I doubt anyone would were it not for political polarization.
I wish I had all day to sit and debate this with you but if you’re never going to understand anything I say because it doesn’t align with your beliefs it’s just wasted time. As long as you believe that Trump and Co are Nazi/Fascist/evil trolls the possibility of reasoning discussion is absent. The faint possibility even exists that they might be but it’s difficult to ascertain with you on logical terms. Have a nice day.
I argued that one should know about a thing before deciding what to do with the thing or there may be inadvertent consequences. You objected because ... I still don't know why. But somehow this makes me blinded by passion, unlike cool, reasonable you, who cannot articulate why you have spent all this time arguing against Chesterton's Fence. OK, then.
Likewise, obviously. I don’t need to prove a negative. You need to show why it’s the responsibility of the USA taxpayer to pay for the poor behaviour of foreign people. Your logic has followed itself full circle back to the original hypothesis without going anywhere. Then you retreat into “offended” status when I don’t swallow. It’s not insulting to challenge you on the logical fallacies you present, but that’s how a certain mindset retreats when ideological supposition is challenged. Surely that not who you are.
"You need to show why it’s the responsibility of the USA taxpayer to pay for the poor behaviour of foreign people." No, I don't. You just made that up and asserted it (and kept asserting it even after I showed you the rationale for the very existence of USAID is something else entirely, a point you are steadfastly ignoring.) In this essay, I made the point that one should understand a policy or program's function and purpose before deciding to reform or axe it -- wow, talk about controversial! -- and that if one instead goes with the "ready, fire, aim" method Musk has adopted, bad things happen ... bad things like cutting and denouncing a program that sent condoms to Hamas then being humiliated when it turns out the condoms were sent to an entirely different part of the world for an entirely different purpose. If there is anything "illogical" in there, you have failed to identify it. But do get back to me when you find something.
That’s ok. If you can’t understand axioms there’s no point trying to reason with you. I’m not going to follow you down your rabbit hole of absent logic.
Yes, keep tut-tutting my poor logic -- without providing specifics, naturally -- and ignore the blatant fact that you simply ignore my responses and repeat yourself like a bot. If the goal is to protect your existing beliefs and self-conception, that will work like a charm.
Which is back to the original point of why is it that USA taxpayers should be buying condoms for foreigners? You’re going in circles and still playing in logical fallacies. It still doesn’t matter if it’s gaza or Mozambique
That’s very interesting. You seem to believe that programs were cut without any understanding of what they were. How do you know that? Perhaps you don’t know what they were and the people who cut them do? You’re exhibiting the same style of hubris in presuming they were ignorant as you claim of them. Your position seems based more on your dislike of the persons involved than the fundamentals of the decision making. Please show where I’m wrong in thinking this.
How do I know they were cutting things they didn’t understand? Um, I know that because they went public to ridicule sending condoms to Gaza and were embarrassed when it was pointed out that it wasn’t to *that* Gaza. Kinda hard to miss, really. And yet, you are…
You are absolutely right on this Dan, but if we are honest this kind of thing has been a long time coming. In many ways rank and file Republicans have not really been Chesterton conservatives for years. This ethos is best distilled in an essay in The Federalist entitled "We need to Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives." While the essay was published in 2022 the ideology it describes was there for some time.
Ever since Rush Limbaugh the strain of proud know nothings in the Republican party has rooted and festered. When the Tea Party came along they were ardently committed to destruction, based largely on the premise that America as it was (with feminism and a black president) was unsaveable. The party leadership has been happy to ride this ethos and promise major change but never to deliver it. That's the fertile ground that Trump took over.
These days the Chestertonian conservatives are Democrats.
Why is it harder for some people to forgive a few of Musk's money-saving mistakes than it is forgive USAID's tremendous money-wasting mistakes for decades?
I think you have missed the mark with your analogy that Trump and Musk are like Bolcheviks. They are fascist in wanting to create technocratic monarchies, with themselves as king.
If you check out the ‘SV Sage’ Curtis Yarvin’s writings: he believes that democracies are holding people, like himself back, and that humans need to be governed by a technocratic king so they can reach their fullest potential.
Of course that means that everyone who isn’t a king is expendable, since AI driven robots will fulfill all the roles and do all the work for the king.
Now I’ll admit I haven’t read his thesis for myself yet, but based on the behaviour of those who follow his thinking, people like Musk, Thiel, and the rest of the billionaire cabal from Silicone Valley, you can see a clear pattern. Democracy is ‘mob rule’ and must be stamped out.
Now that the Trumpists have opened the gates to the US Government networks and allow in Musk’s vandals in, they will destroy as much as possible, and then offer up AI based solutions to fix what they broke. And once the AIs are entrenched, they will go at the remaining government networks and data like an agressive, terminal stage 4 cancer. Even if the AIs will answer to someone like Musk, the ‘government’ will not function in ways they expect, because they will have destroyed all the old ways that supported the government.
Chesterton was a far wiser man than any I have seen in the GOP-Trumpist camp. I hope that the US will survive this coup d’état. But the prognosis sure isn’t looking good right now.
Good try. Let’s form a committee. I will call you next week and we can see who will be on the committee. Make sure everyone on the committee is marginalized and has no knowledge of anything but their victim hood. Good try at defending the status quo.
I know but aren’t you just a little bit glad to shake it up. The EPA having 40 billon in a bank to fund imaginary projects with no oversight? Wish there was a fence there.
Perfection is a fool's ideal when it comes to government. What Musk is doing is *closer* to a "top-to-bottom review, coupled with a willingness to cut ruthlessly" than anything any previous government has done. I'll take that improvement, even if it isn't perfect.
Certainly MSNBC (and the CBC) are inclined to view it as madness, similar to the way they didn't seem to feel that, say, suddenly forgiving billions of dollars in student loans isn't madness.
I agree that would be nice. This is money shit and there should be no political CPAs. DOD? has failed every audit for how many administrations? We tried that periodic please.
Stating "facts" such as "American conservatives have outsourced their minds to the Party" demonstrates a disappointing certainty that you know what is in the minds of others. This unwarranted certainty is a hallmark of TDS and clouds thinking while narrowing the range of ideas allowed.
Ah. So pray tell, what other plausible hypotheses are there to explain why the reaction of Republicans to head-spinning shifts like "let's annex Canada" or "we're on Russia's side" or "let's turn over the keys to the government to a billionaire and some teenage hackers" ranges from silent acquiescence to (more often) enthusiastic clapping?
That's some doubling down on "insight", Dan. Are you trying to outdo Trump’s hyperbole? Consider, if you will, that the US government has grown into an essentially unsupervisable, gargantuan beast and that a very large portion of the populace feels poorly served and too dogmatically restricted. With the Democrat elite favouring continuation, there's an appetite for a radical shift back to smaller, less intrusive government. Tariff threats aside, Trump’s actions are just following through for the most part. Isn't that a plausible hypothesis for his continuing support from Republicans?
Funny how conservatives are doing what they've always accused liberals of doing: breaking things down without a strong understanding of their function and purpose. And the big government accusations has been a way for the right to turn the people against the same government agencies that help them live (Dpt of Education, Medicare, Social Security, etc). The Deep State has always been coded language to refer to the government agencies that couldn't kowtow to their agenda. Now that they have an opportunity to dismantle them that's exactly what their doing and we all went along with it. smh.
Ready! Fire! Aim!
Nice article! You keep preemptively plagiarizing me. I had an article in the works titled "Trumpism As The Tearing Down Of Chesterton's Fence." So accurate. Very alarming that we have unelected people in a caffeine and Adderall filled sleepless haze erratically slashing government programs based on fifteen second descriptions of what they do.
Excellent! (The pre-emptive plagiarism part, not the catastrophic-vandalism bit.)
This is why as a conservative, I feel more and more politically homeless. The left and the right now has a revolutionary zeal to burn down the institutions, the most insane now being the right. It used to be the left that wanted to destroy Chesteron’s fence before finding out why it was there, to be sympathetic to our authoritarian rivals and use state power to control their political enemies. Now the right has become what the left was.
The right is no longer conservative or liberal (in that conservatives wanted to conserve liberal institutions). Illiberalism can be found on the left and the right. I don’t know what to call them other than revolutionary reactionaries, but that sounds like contradiction.
I don't think it is a contradiction. I would consider the "levelers" to be revolutionaries in the sense that they wished to reduce the difference in material conditions between the classes. Yet many of these folks from John Ball (When Adam delved, and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?) on, saw themselves as trying to restore an old order that existed mostly in myth.
Not wanting to be too pedantic, but seems to me that there are two elements to the idea of ‘use’ in Chesterton’s paragraph. First, one needs to consider what the fence is supposed to achieve, and then second, it is important to determine whether or how effective it is. It may be there to prevent my neighbour’s sheep from eating my crops. But it may not be worth keeping if it only covers the road and the sheep walk onto my fields by going around the fence.
In the current situation other factors seem to be driving action. If the ‘modern reformers’ of Mr. Trump’s world have no respect for me or want to do me harm then defining ‘use’ is irrelevant. If they do not care at all for people outside of their own in-group once again ‘use’ is not important. For example, they seem to be immune to stories of hardship and even death they might be causing to people around the world benefiting from USAID support. Or they see nothing at the end of the tunnel other than the light of their own objective, which may be nothing more than all power vested in the hands of one person, so informed discussion of ‘use’ is again of no relevance.
Nothing MAGA is doing prevents you from sending condoms to Mozambique yourself.
Point taken.
Here's a real-life story, Dan: An English minister of defense went to a military base one day to conduct an inspection, so the Colonel in charge decided to impress him by putting on a fancy display of pageantry, with a 24-canon salute. As the event unfolded, the politician asked the Colonel, "What is that soldier on the field doing?" The Colonel replied, "Oh, he's the 'Fifth Man'!" The politician replied, "Yes, I see that there are five soldiers manning each canon. One funnels the gunpowder down the barrel; one tamps it down; one drops the shot in; and the fourth lights the fuse - all in rapid succession. But the 'Fifth Man' as you call him - what does he do?" The Colonel was surprised at the question; "I don't know, he has simply always been there." So the politician asked the Colonel to investigate and get back to him. It turns out that the Fifth Man is a vestige of the days of the cavalry, when the blasting of the canons would frighten the horses; someone had to hold their reigns so the horses wouldn't bolt away. When the army ceased using horses, the Fifth Man was simply kept, even though he had no function anymore.
Governments become senile the same way people do, through a gradual accretion of small defects that are not repaired, or burdens - deadweights - that are not eliminated. There is no mechanism, such as competition in a free market, to force government bureaucracies to mend their ways, or wind themselves up when their original function no longer serves a purpose. On the contrary, once a bureaucracy has been established, it takes on a life of its own; self-preservation and expansion - "mission creep" - becomes its function.
It could be that the destroyers in the Trump government know more than you do, Dan. It could be that they have read a book or two in the "public choice" school of economics, which posits that public-sector workers and managers are every bit as self-interested as private-sector workers and managers. It could be that they understand how a complex network of civil servants can become opaque to oversight, how a lack of transparency masks waste and corruption. It could be that they realize that at some point even useful fences become so dilapidated and patched over that the only remedy is to tear the whole thing down and start over from scratch. And it could be that they are inspired by the recent example of Argentina. You have heard about Argentina, haven't you, Dan?
In 1900, Argentina was the third most wealthy country in the world, owing in part to its silver mines (hence the name). The people of Argentina thought the wealth came easily and would never end, so they started voting themselves all manner of government benefits based on socialist ideals. It didn't take long before the country was ruined, became a third world backwater, and suffered internal strife for which the military was called in to sort out. But the senility of the Argentine government was not rectified, until Javier Milei came along and took a chain saw to the bureaucracy. To the shock of lefties everywhere, Argentina is once more thriving after less than two years of reforms.
Think back to the days when you were defending Wikipedia against the charge of being "Wokepedia." Remember the "denominator problem"? Sure, you said, anyone can find anecdotes to show that this or that entry in Wikipedia is biased toward the left; but there are billions of entries in Wikipedia! You can't possibly prove anything general about Wikipedia from a few anecdotes - the denominator is simply too big. And besides, just go out and fix the entries you think are biased, and Bob's your Uncle. Remember that, Dan? Well, right back at you: The US bureaucracy is vast, and costs $7trillion each year to maintain. Of course you will be able to find examples where cost-cutting is problematic, but that doesn't prove that the government is well-functioning in general - that large bureaucracies are not senile. And anyway, if "Gaza" errors happen, you can simply fix them, no biggie! Moreover, nobody is stopping bleeding hearts such as yourself from sending condoms over to Mozambique, or donating to private charities to do this kind of work (generally much better than government agencies, for all the familiar reasons that public choice theory lists). In order to criticize Musk, you have a huge denominator problem, Dan.
Good article - hard to disagree. Unfortunately, there's an underlying assumption of some level of rationality for the analogy to work. Not only is this absent, but there is also now an alternative reality that's been created, plus advocates of the approach WANT to believe, no matter what. Facts, nuance, context are all redundant. Even in a more rational world imagine trying to actually tie down and verify anything about this. Musk "I've saved $5 billion so far!". Independent interviewer (assuming this was part of US politics) "How can you verify that figure?' Musk "I said so". Trump "Elon's doing a fantastic job he's saved $10 billion". Reason doesn't work in the current scenario. Hard to know what will at present.
The third possibility is that Musk and co, with Trump’s blessing, are changing how America deals with foreign aid. The idea that the West can save everyone who suffers anywhere in the world is perhaps passé. The West no longer dominates as it once did.
And yet, the idea that the USA needs thousands of nuclear weapons, built to fight a whole Warsaw Pact that vanished 30 years ago, still exists. And that notion is costing the USA vastly more than USAID does.
It's gotten especially wacky now that the Soviets, I mean Russians, are partners in crime, and China can't afford to attack America, the only market keeping her economy afloat.
The attendees of CPAC are not "conservatives". In the same way that attendees of Hitler's rallies were not "socialists". The conservatives in America no longer have a party, they gave it up.
Conservatives believe in small government, and Trump / Musk is giving it to them.
I've been surprised that the many, many commentators on the ripping-up of American government's services, have not once mentioned Chandresekaran's "Life in the Emerald City".
The belief that people will flourish if you remove the "dead hand of government" was already tested in Iraq, over 20 years back. From the Goodreads summary:
" ... details Bernard Kerik’s ludicrous attempt to train the Iraqi police and brings to light lesser known but typical the case of the twenty-four-year-old who had never worked in finance put in charge of reestablishing Baghdad’s stock exchange; a contractor with no previous experience paid millions to guard a closed airport;" (it goes on. and on.)
We now know that they were not being disingenuous, not secretly intent upon destroying Iraq as a functioning country: they're really so deep in the conservative rabbit-hole that they think that most government would never be missed, that all those services that had to be fought into existence were never needed.
(This doesn't apply to policing: no conservative believes police are not needed, that people just naturally behave themselves on the street; they only think people just naturally behave themselves in the market. No need for food inspectors, the Invisible Hand will do! )
I believe the book contains not just the things-they-did, but clear, unambiguous statements from important Republicans about how Iraq would flourish from this fresh start with bureaucracy removed. It distresses me how many people "sanewash" the whole Republican party when they describe Trump as some new thing, a radical change. Trump is very much Bush 2.0; you can find the roots of every Trump "crazy" idea in the Bush administration.
That may help explain why this is not just Trump or Elon Musk, but the whole GOP falling into line behind them, supporting and enabling all of this: it's not rogue, it's long-term Republican belief and stated policy intent. And they never changed it when it didn't work in Iraq.
The progressives in UNRWA did SO much better in Gaza, right?
You're bringing up a temporary-relief organization, for those made homeless by war, into a discussion of a multi-year rebuilding the whole infrastructure of a nation, so that's head-scratching. Think I'll just let it go.
Normal people would expect a relief program for a specific population to be temporary, but UNRWA has been permanent -- and, as we now know, is effectively part of Hamas. Canada has even been a complicit enabler by funding, unwittingly one hopes, viciously antisemitic textbooks for UNRWA schools.
You are bringing up a 20-year-old story about Iraq, so that's head-scratching.
Thank-you for mentioning that book. I've just put a hold on it at my public library. I guess Project 2025 is the latest version of the "long-term Republican belief"?
I gather the "2025" plan was written by the Heritage Foundation, a 52-year-old institution for that party, probably their most famous and largest. Haven't heard much lately from the "American Enterprise Institute", which drew up the similar plans for Iraq that worked out so badly.
So a bunch of Africans will infect themselves with HIV if Musk saves the American taxpayer $50 million and you're trying to play it off as if this is a tough lesson for Musk and MAGA-supporting Americans? Oh no, how ever will we learn our lesson? What laughable, petty, twisted reasoning.
It is “laughable, petty, and twisted” that I take human lives to be of value and deaths matter? Well, ok, it’s true that my reasoning falls apart if in fact you don’t give a shit. I must grant you that.
No, your reasoning is completely illogical. You’re just so wedded to it that you can’t see that. Instead you write an article that contradicts itself….. at first praising the idea of local solutions then insisting that withdrawing top-down foreign aid solutions to local problems is Trumpist evil. It’s one or the other but somehow you like to argue both ways.
I have no idea what you’re even talking about now. My point, with you, was simply that there were other dimensions to the problem which you were ignoring / not even thinking to look for. Reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom of any program, including this one. What I objected to was slashing away without the slightest understanding what you’re slashing. Which is a) pretty simple and b) inarguable.
The main flaw in your thinking is that it overlooks the responsibility Mozambicans have over whether they contract HIV and the lack of it that American taxpayers have. If Mozambicans don't bother taking measures to avoid HIV, then evidently it's not only American taxpayers who regard the matter with little value.
In my piece, I mentioned “WYSIATI.” You are demonstrating “WYSIATI” here: Specifically, you aren’t aware that they take steps to protect themselves from HIV so you take it as fact that they don’t, and draw conclusions on that basis. All assumption. Pure WYSIATI.
It's a matter of responsibility. At least one African country (I don't think it was Mozambique) has acknowledged that they should have taken responsibility for a health program that USAID was funding. As for USAID itself, it is now more widely known that it was closely tied to the CIA and used to gather information and influence populations, whether or not it fulfilled any humanitarian purpose. Aid was not its main purpose.
Read the essay I wrote on the origins of USAID entitled “The Ugly American.” I didn’t argue any specific program must be maintained forever. I argued Chesterton’s Fence, which is pretty darned hard to object, and I doubt anyone would were it not for political polarization.
I wish I had all day to sit and debate this with you but if you’re never going to understand anything I say because it doesn’t align with your beliefs it’s just wasted time. As long as you believe that Trump and Co are Nazi/Fascist/evil trolls the possibility of reasoning discussion is absent. The faint possibility even exists that they might be but it’s difficult to ascertain with you on logical terms. Have a nice day.
I argued that one should know about a thing before deciding what to do with the thing or there may be inadvertent consequences. You objected because ... I still don't know why. But somehow this makes me blinded by passion, unlike cool, reasonable you, who cannot articulate why you have spent all this time arguing against Chesterton's Fence. OK, then.
Likewise, obviously. I don’t need to prove a negative. You need to show why it’s the responsibility of the USA taxpayer to pay for the poor behaviour of foreign people. Your logic has followed itself full circle back to the original hypothesis without going anywhere. Then you retreat into “offended” status when I don’t swallow. It’s not insulting to challenge you on the logical fallacies you present, but that’s how a certain mindset retreats when ideological supposition is challenged. Surely that not who you are.
"You need to show why it’s the responsibility of the USA taxpayer to pay for the poor behaviour of foreign people." No, I don't. You just made that up and asserted it (and kept asserting it even after I showed you the rationale for the very existence of USAID is something else entirely, a point you are steadfastly ignoring.) In this essay, I made the point that one should understand a policy or program's function and purpose before deciding to reform or axe it -- wow, talk about controversial! -- and that if one instead goes with the "ready, fire, aim" method Musk has adopted, bad things happen ... bad things like cutting and denouncing a program that sent condoms to Hamas then being humiliated when it turns out the condoms were sent to an entirely different part of the world for an entirely different purpose. If there is anything "illogical" in there, you have failed to identify it. But do get back to me when you find something.
That’s ok. If you can’t understand axioms there’s no point trying to reason with you. I’m not going to follow you down your rabbit hole of absent logic.
Yes, keep tut-tutting my poor logic -- without providing specifics, naturally -- and ignore the blatant fact that you simply ignore my responses and repeat yourself like a bot. If the goal is to protect your existing beliefs and self-conception, that will work like a charm.
Which is back to the original point of why is it that USA taxpayers should be buying condoms for foreigners? You’re going in circles and still playing in logical fallacies. It still doesn’t matter if it’s gaza or Mozambique
Phil, you're not even trying to respond to what I'm saying, only repeating yourself, sprinkled with condemnations of my reasoning. Goodbye.
That’s very interesting. You seem to believe that programs were cut without any understanding of what they were. How do you know that? Perhaps you don’t know what they were and the people who cut them do? You’re exhibiting the same style of hubris in presuming they were ignorant as you claim of them. Your position seems based more on your dislike of the persons involved than the fundamentals of the decision making. Please show where I’m wrong in thinking this.
Also this is one of many such stories: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/upshot/doge-spending-cuts-changed.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
How do I know they were cutting things they didn’t understand? Um, I know that because they went public to ridicule sending condoms to Gaza and were embarrassed when it was pointed out that it wasn’t to *that* Gaza. Kinda hard to miss, really. And yet, you are…
You are absolutely right on this Dan, but if we are honest this kind of thing has been a long time coming. In many ways rank and file Republicans have not really been Chesterton conservatives for years. This ethos is best distilled in an essay in The Federalist entitled "We need to Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives." While the essay was published in 2022 the ideology it describes was there for some time.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/20/we-need-to-stop-calling-ourselves-conservatives/
Ever since Rush Limbaugh the strain of proud know nothings in the Republican party has rooted and festered. When the Tea Party came along they were ardently committed to destruction, based largely on the premise that America as it was (with feminism and a black president) was unsaveable. The party leadership has been happy to ride this ethos and promise major change but never to deliver it. That's the fertile ground that Trump took over.
These days the Chestertonian conservatives are Democrats.
Why is it harder for some people to forgive a few of Musk's money-saving mistakes than it is forgive USAID's tremendous money-wasting mistakes for decades?
Perhaps because he has just gotten started and there are significant lags in government policy?
I think you have missed the mark with your analogy that Trump and Musk are like Bolcheviks. They are fascist in wanting to create technocratic monarchies, with themselves as king.
If you check out the ‘SV Sage’ Curtis Yarvin’s writings: he believes that democracies are holding people, like himself back, and that humans need to be governed by a technocratic king so they can reach their fullest potential.
Of course that means that everyone who isn’t a king is expendable, since AI driven robots will fulfill all the roles and do all the work for the king.
Now I’ll admit I haven’t read his thesis for myself yet, but based on the behaviour of those who follow his thinking, people like Musk, Thiel, and the rest of the billionaire cabal from Silicone Valley, you can see a clear pattern. Democracy is ‘mob rule’ and must be stamped out.
Now that the Trumpists have opened the gates to the US Government networks and allow in Musk’s vandals in, they will destroy as much as possible, and then offer up AI based solutions to fix what they broke. And once the AIs are entrenched, they will go at the remaining government networks and data like an agressive, terminal stage 4 cancer. Even if the AIs will answer to someone like Musk, the ‘government’ will not function in ways they expect, because they will have destroyed all the old ways that supported the government.
Chesterton was a far wiser man than any I have seen in the GOP-Trumpist camp. I hope that the US will survive this coup d’état. But the prognosis sure isn’t looking good right now.
Good try. Let’s form a committee. I will call you next week and we can see who will be on the committee. Make sure everyone on the committee is marginalized and has no knowledge of anything but their victim hood. Good try at defending the status quo.
Dude, it would be the president's committee. He would decide he sits on it.
I know but aren’t you just a little bit glad to shake it up. The EPA having 40 billon in a bank to fund imaginary projects with no oversight? Wish there was a fence there.
I think periodic top-to-bottom reviews, coupled with a willingness to cut ruthlessly, are an excellent idea. This isn't that. This is madness.
Perfection is a fool's ideal when it comes to government. What Musk is doing is *closer* to a "top-to-bottom review, coupled with a willingness to cut ruthlessly" than anything any previous government has done. I'll take that improvement, even if it isn't perfect.
Certainly MSNBC (and the CBC) are inclined to view it as madness, similar to the way they didn't seem to feel that, say, suddenly forgiving billions of dollars in student loans isn't madness.
I agree that would be nice. This is money shit and there should be no political CPAs. DOD? has failed every audit for how many administrations? We tried that periodic please.
Stating "facts" such as "American conservatives have outsourced their minds to the Party" demonstrates a disappointing certainty that you know what is in the minds of others. This unwarranted certainty is a hallmark of TDS and clouds thinking while narrowing the range of ideas allowed.
Ah. So pray tell, what other plausible hypotheses are there to explain why the reaction of Republicans to head-spinning shifts like "let's annex Canada" or "we're on Russia's side" or "let's turn over the keys to the government to a billionaire and some teenage hackers" ranges from silent acquiescence to (more often) enthusiastic clapping?
That's some doubling down on "insight", Dan. Are you trying to outdo Trump’s hyperbole? Consider, if you will, that the US government has grown into an essentially unsupervisable, gargantuan beast and that a very large portion of the populace feels poorly served and too dogmatically restricted. With the Democrat elite favouring continuation, there's an appetite for a radical shift back to smaller, less intrusive government. Tariff threats aside, Trump’s actions are just following through for the most part. Isn't that a plausible hypothesis for his continuing support from Republicans?
Funny how conservatives are doing what they've always accused liberals of doing: breaking things down without a strong understanding of their function and purpose. And the big government accusations has been a way for the right to turn the people against the same government agencies that help them live (Dpt of Education, Medicare, Social Security, etc). The Deep State has always been coded language to refer to the government agencies that couldn't kowtow to their agenda. Now that they have an opportunity to dismantle them that's exactly what their doing and we all went along with it. smh.