If the states are so wise, why do so many keep passing same-sex union laws? What in the name of Jefferson Raving Davis is going on here?
Ok, with that little aside aside, please let me take a moment to explain how centralized government works. First, you take a bi-cameral legislature and invest them with broad powers to borrow tons of money from foreign governments. You change the lower house every other year, only not really, and you change the upper house every six years, but not really. You establish a judiciary appointed for life by the executive branch and approved by the legislative branch, but not really. You nominate and elect a Head of Centralized Government (President) who, these days, inevitably runs as an anti-Washington, D. C., kind of guy.
Then, you have them all live, work and babble profanely in the same small town on the Potomac River. Enormous amounts of money flow into this town, enormous amounts of money and power stay in this town and everybody who lives there works in some form of government, or wants to, like all the people in Orlando, Florida want to work for Mickey Mouse.
Every four years a new group of men and women run against Washington, hate, I say, hate on Washington, all the while knowing the prize of their race is the right to live in Washington. You cannot run for the office, except as incumbent, without hating on Washington. If you are the incumbent executive, you have to hate on Congress, which, let's see, meets in, uh, wait for it, hold on a minute, yes, I see; Washington.
And the American people are asked to believe during each election cycle that the fellow who wins the spot (all fellows so far) will immediately begin to dethrone himself as quickly as he takes office. This has not yet happened, but, like fifth marriages, hope trumps history every time.
Ronald Reagan had the well remembered line about the nine scariest English words, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Then, God rest his Irish soul, Reagan tripled the national debt and grew the size of government to Oprah-like proportions.
No one willingly surrenders caste. The fellows running for Head of the Central Government do intend their own evisceration.
Candidates run against Washington for the same reason PACs offer attack ads (Reagan ran exactly zero negative ads in his 1980 campaign). Attack ads appeal to non-thinkers. Attack ads do not allow the follow-up question. Attack ads stay on message. The candidates' applause line always has something to do with "Taking Back Washington."
Which can mean anything. What it does not mean is the fellow who gets the office means to make it less important.
Opinions expressed here are mine alone.
Being a subversive inside Rick Perry's "envy of the nation" makes even less sense. It is like having a former ED who has been given the power to tax and misspend. So, the Legislature keeps cutting the budget, consolidating its agenda among fewer and fewer people but not relinquishing any responsibilities. So children are less safe, less healthy, the poor are poorer because they fester in the squalor of decaying cities and their ladders to climb out are taken away by cutting education, packing more mentally ill off to prison, and generally doing nothing but self serving rabble rousing that at the end of the day only enriches the rich and entitled.
Posted by: Michael Chancellor | February 23, 2012 at 08:10 PM
Do you mean this: that the person running for President should accept that he will be head of a branch federal government, that is his fate; accordingly, it's silly to decry federal government ('run against Washington')? And that Reagan, for example, knew that?
Or, do you mean centralized government has a fate - a destiny - which Presidential candidates should accept?
Or, do you mean that the fate of our governmental systems is to become ever more centralized - further entrenchment? Further flow of power Washington-ward, away from state, county, city, school board, local government?
The plodding mind wants to know, and would not ask if it wasn't interesting!
Whether or not states are particularly wise, federalism is supposed to systemically protect against centralized government. But federalism is not well known.
Posted by: K Gray | February 24, 2012 at 02:17 PM