My Latin professor once taught me the golden rule of Roman emperors, Vulgus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur. It means the masses want to be cheated, so let’s cheat them. Machiavelli built his theory of government partially on this credo.
Some scientists boycotted a recent conference that examined the EPA’s draconian proposal to regulate ultra-small soot particles. The sponsoring organization, the Annapolis Center, gets corporate money. According to Harvard epidemiologist Joel Schwartz, that makes the event look “like a set-up job.”
The most encouraging trend of our time is the widespread loss of faith in government. No longer do people look to the government as the great problem solver, economic planner, social unifier, or cultural czar. The government is more likely to be seen for what it is, a haven for grafters, liars, and would-be tyrants. Americans, like the Russians, no longer believe anything until it is officially denied.
Jack Kemp, former HUD secretary and failed vice presidential candidate, recently proved that academic leftists aren’t the only ones intolerant of politically incorrect ideas. He interrupted a luncheon speech I was giving at an academic conference by squirreling around in his seat, ostentatiously rolling his shoulders and eyes, and loudly and repeatedly moaning, “Jeez!” and “Oh Gawd!”
The 5th Street Theater in Seattle, Washington, is one of a dwindling number of houses of its kind. It receives no government money whatsoever. Its revenues come from a permanent endowment and ticket sales to its popular, if small-scale shows. Its charter prevents it from raising money from other private sources. It keeps a low profile in the arts community, but its staff is as loyal and dedicated as its steady stream of patrons.
The World Trade Organization has a fantastic but undeserved reputation in international circles as the world’s premier institution of free trade. Despite all of the WTO’s pretensions to greatness, this glorified trade-management bureaucracy exists only to promote the interests of well-heeled trade lobbyists and political power brokers.
If you love bad news, devote your life to studying government. You’ll learn about the colossal waste of NASA, the diseases spread by the school-lunch program, the lies of the FBI, the corruption subsidized by foreign aid, and the debauchery of the military base.
An hour before midnight, February 3, 1997, a sheriff’s car with its lights flashing pulled up to a middle-class home in Effingham County, Georgia. It had come for Debbie Gaskin, wife and mother. She was arrested, handcuffed, fingerprinted, and photographed. She posted bond, and was released.
What crime had Mrs. Gaskin committed? Three weeks earlier, she had removed her 5-year-old daughter, Jaynie, from the local public school and decided to educate her at home.
Amid media fanfare, the Pentagon has released its report on U.S. military and foreign policy into the next century. The report says that the U.S. should retain the military capability to fight two foreign wars at once. The Cold War may be over, the Pentagon admits, but it warns against any attempt to pare back the warfare state or cut the cash flow to arms dealers.
Our domestic automakers produce fine cars and trucks that people freely choose to buy. They make lots of money doing this. So why is the federal government shoveling hundred of millions of dollars annually in corporate welfare their way?
