One of the hallmarks of the current system we live under is that it is assumed that people cannot manage their own lives anymore without the guidance (control) of experts in government and industry. The computerized systems we must negotiate to satisfy the requirements of daily life are arcane to the point of impenetrability. And they’re constantly patched and endlessly updated. At every turn we need to employ the “help” of experts and agents of the government and quasi-official agencies or just corporate customer service. Some of these in the corporate ranks are, to be fair, quite good. You might buy a phone or a service contract from a vendor and they might do excellent work providing customer service for their products or services.
But for every good example there are a dozen where customer service is provided by someone in Mumbai with English language skills that would test the patience of Job. And sometimes the results of consulting these representatives are worse than useless. Rather than alleviate some initial problem they sink you deeper in a morass of problems. And going through these sometimes hours-long ordeals saps your energy and raises your stress levels through the roof.
And this is just trying to get the service on a device working. Imagine what it’s like when the IRS gets its claws into you. Then we’re talking about terror. And taking it all the way to infinity, imagine dealing with the FBI when they take a battering ram to your front door at 3 a.m. prior to dragging you off to the gulag. I guess you could describe the whole system as assault by expert. We are no longer allowed to live our lives in a simple reasonable way. We have each become just a cog in the machine. And every cog must be cut into the precise size and shape needed to conform to the requirements of the machine.
It might be bearable if it wasn’t apparent that the stress, embarrassment and pain inflicted in the machining of the cogs is obviously a feature of the process and not a bug. Just as in the Soviet system, control is maintained through fear and confusion. Orwell described this system in his novel “1984” and Solzhenitsyn confirmed its reality and provided details in his memoir “Gulag Archipelago.”
So, what’s my point? Well, just this. Winning elections is not going to gain back the country we had. Whoever is president is going to have to demolish the Deep State. And that means eliminating thousands and thousands of bureaucrats whose jobs are meant to bludgeon us into submission, literally cause death by a thousand paper cuts.
I’ve read that eliminating those bureaucrats can’t be done. That all those bureaucrats’ jobs are protected by federal law. To that I say, “So what?” Surely the President can transfer all of these torturers into completely harmless parts of their departments. If need be, he can create sections where the offending individuals can be employed stuffing envelopes with letters that won’t be mailed. He can keep them doing that until they’re forced into retirement by extreme old age.
But by whatever means he comes up with to do it, that’s what must be done. All those FBI agents who currently spend their days enticing disgruntled Americans into joining phony militias with phony insurrections can be reassigned to a division where all their time is spent ticketing double parked limousines outside the State Department. All of the IRS agents can be repurposed as latrine inspectors for the National Parks Service. All of the bureaucrats currently hassling utilities companies about the carbon dioxide emissions of their combustion plants can be safely transferred to Denali National Park in Alaska where they can monitor the temperature of the grizzly bears with a rectal thermometer. Or they can try to at least once.
All kidding aside. Whoever wants to save this country will have to dismantle wide swaths of the managerial state just to start regaining control of the federal government. There’s no other way. Think about that Mr. Trump and anyone else who thinks he wants the job. And then think about how you can get it done.
