The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Paco’s Struggle Against Homo Bureaucratus

Posted on | March 6, 2010 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

With some formatting help from me, Paco notes the sad state of the State:

The ostentatious policy-wonkishness of the Obama administration is something that I now have the misfortune of living with every day at my own agency. The primary feature of this bureaucratic fantasy world is an unprecedented number of political employees solidly committed to carrying out Obama’s big-government agenda, but not having the first clue as to how to go about it (or even what “it” is). These people have

  • an insatiable need for information,
  • a congenital inability to effectively process it,
  • a misplaced sense of urgency, and
  • a naïve belief in their ability to influence national policy from within the bowels of a small federal agency that exists pretty much at the margin of economic activity.

They are like piano tuners who, through some extraordinary mix-up in communication, have been called in to do a plumbing job, but are not about to let their ignorance of the difference between an elbow fitting and a drain trap prevent them from tackling the assignment; and they are perfectly willing to run the risk of flooding your basement, secure in the knowledge that, by the time you discover your pool cues and your tax papers floating about like so much debris after a hurricane, they will have moved on to do the Lord’s work elsewhere.

Belief in the soteriological capacity of the State is among the chief bugaboos we must fight.

Comments

4 Responses to “Paco’s Struggle Against Homo Bureaucratus

  1. Paco
    March 7th, 2010 @ 3:30 am

    Thanks for the link, Smitty! And the new word (soteriological).

  2. Paco
    March 6th, 2010 @ 10:30 pm

    Thanks for the link, Smitty! And the new word (soteriological).

  3. mrobvious
    March 7th, 2010 @ 8:41 pm

    I believe the more current term is “Soetorological”.

  4. mrobvious
    March 7th, 2010 @ 3:41 pm

    I believe the more current term is “Soetorological”.