I don’t believe this will happen. The temptation posed by the vast sums of money the Federal government can now raise is irresistible. Like Sauron’s ring, it’s just too much concentrated power and everyone who comes into contact with it will eventually succumb. Being about as far from hobbits as you can get, modern Americans firmly believe you can do a lot of good with that much money… and snap, we’re snared.

The only way to break the addiction to money is to take it away, or rather take away the means of raising so much of it. Repealing the income tax could be a start. But what are the odds of that happening?

It is time for a conversation about what we expect, need, want, from our government. The cost structure is within our control economically. It is not however, within our control with regards to the special interests that expect the government spending to benefit themselves. Police, Fire, Engineers, Contractors, Health Insurance providers, teachers, landscapers, the list goes on. This is not just the normal list of special interests groups. They are friends, neighbors, fellow PTO members, church members.

Local government is expected to serve up the services at low prices, ala Wal-Mart, without the correct economic incentives, competition, or understanding of profit.

I read with amazement in the local papers, the blank spaces where this conversation could be happening, and see nothing.

I would feel better about our fate if the Congress and the Executive were to trade places with the occupants of the Great Ape House at the Bronx Zoo for a fortnight. The ape’s most colorful gibbering would, by and large… exceed the combined intellect of our current standing government. By default or as planned it don’t matter because the proof is in the spoiled pudding.

After all, Washington D.C. is now a Human Zoo, an amusement park if you will, where the bamboozled citizen is invited down to be stirred by the wonder of our Potemkin Monument while those working behind the scenes pick the body clean like a bunch of Piranha on a ganja-fueled munchy session.

Not on purpose mind you, it just happened this way after the people decided to sit back and watch as the Establishment took to rolling big giant spliffs of dollar bills and smoking them in a manner redolent of the locomotives of yore. They see green shoots now, growing sweetly emerald out of the thick carpet of bullshit that covers the place like the slopes of Mt St Helens after it blew.

Anyone not seriously cynical should pinch themselves and wake up to the walking nightmare.

-GP

This is to say that certain individuals naturally have greater talent than others, and are born with the characteristics of an ideal ruler. The idea of mixed government also stems from this for various reasons.

I would elaborate but I am on the way out.

I’m curious, would you please explain what and to whom you are referring when you say “leadership class”?

Thanks in advance.

pax, caritas, et bonum-
GP

You are most definitely the best writer on here. But am I mistaken, or did you not tell your students that you voted for Obama in the 2008 election?