Governed by Fools

from By the Book, an article by Kevin Williamson in The National Review:

We conservatives are great enthusiasts for the devolution of government powers, the subsidiarity that so moved Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote that such an arrangement has “not only an administrative value, but also a civic dimension, since it increases the opportunities for citizens to take interest in public affairs; it makes them get accustomed to using freedom. And from the accumulation of these local, active, persnickety freedoms, is born the most efficient counterweight against the claims of the central government, even if it were supported by an impersonal, collective will.” But the fact is that local governments, or even pseudo-governmental agencies such as homeowners’ associations, can be as tyrannical as any of the sundry fiends that staff the IRS.

So if you happen to have a little free library standing in Leawood, Kan., you might want to drop in a few extra copies of Democracy in America.

We pay a great deal of attention to the composition of our laws — the occasional gazillion-dollar national health-care bill notwithstanding — but no amount of care in the revision of legal language will ever substitute for prudence, wisdom, and discretion, our shocking public deficits in which transcend mere partisan and ideological affiliation. From the suburbs to the capital, we are governed by fools.

HKO

Whatever our governing philosophy may be, our system requires human judgement-“prudence, wisdom, and discretion”- and any system which dispenses with these human virtues- the most vital ingredients of a free society- in the name of government control is doomed to tyranny- whether from the most local agency to the most comprehensive bloated  national bureaucracy.

This may be a by product of an encroaching cultural dependency on government solutions for every problem.