Basic Premises By Mr. Charley Reese
(2009-08-03 at 15:55:33 )

Basic Premises - by Charley Reese

What follows are a few of the basic premises on which I base my thinking.
You might or might not agree with them, but may I suggest that you make a
list of your own basic premises. It will help you clarify your thinking.

Government is inherently incompetent, and no matter what task it is
assigned, it will do it in the most expensive and inefficient way
possible. The American government is corrupt from top to bottom. If you
rely on the mass media to inform you about your community, state and
nation, you will, with rare exceptions, be woefully ignorant of what is
really going on. The universal franchise is a bad idea. The notion that
the destiny of the nation should be put in the hands of ignoramuses,
parasites, boobs, party hacks and idiots is absurd on its face. Public
education in America is a failure and is so flawed it cannot be reformed.
Not much has changed in the past 5,000 years of human history.

All of that might sound cynical, but it really is not. True conservatives
have argued for years that government, even a benign one, is like a
clumsy, retarded giant, and therefore you have to be careful to limit
what tasks you assign it.

You can make a career out of just criticizing obvious bloopers committed
by the various departments of government, because they all commit them.
The Romans built roads that are still around, but states today continue
to build roads that will pothole and crack within a year, sometimes
sooner. Look at the federal airport-security people. They take nail
trimmers away from grandmothers but allow real weapons to get through.
And so on and so on.

As for the news media, since most media companies are now controlled by a
handful of corporations whose sole interest is in maintaining a high
profit margin, you are getting mostly fluff instead of hard news. Hard
news is labor-intensive. It is cheaper to go with the fluff.

Thomas Jeffersons theoretical belief in a free press soon foundered on
the reality, and he came to despise it. He advised one young man never
to read newspapers, since it was better to be ignorant than misinformed.

As for government corruption, it is all around us. Sure, there are honest
public officials, but the system itself is corrupt. It now requires so
much money to run for office that the field is narrowed to bored
millionaires and office-seekers willing to take as much money as they
can from anywhere they can get it. That is why Congress pays no attention
to the people. It pays attention to the suppliers of campaign funds; not
to mention junkets, fancy vacations and off-the-radar business deals.

As for the universal franchise, the problem with that is obvious. People
who wish to vote should at least be required to pass the same test given
to immigrants who want to become citizens. A lot of voters are not even
sure what state they live in or what century, for that matter. How can
people who are ignorant of history, economics and basic science make an
intelligent choice for a national leader? They can not. They will go with
the demagogue.

And, of course, it is public education that is mass-producing these
ignoramuses. Imagine people completing 16 years of formal education and
not knowing how to spell, punctuate or use their native language
correctly. Imagine college graduates who know virtually nothing about
the history or geography of this country.

As for the final premise, it is simply a reminder to utopians: Human
beings are selfish, flawed and fallible animals. They always have been,
they are now, and they always will be. Therefore, any human institution,
public or private, will reflect those flaws. If you want perfection,
plant a rosebush.

May 5, 2005

Charley Reese was a journalist for 49 years, reporting on everything from
sports to politics. From 1969 through 1971, he worked as a campaign staffer
for gubernatorial, senatorial and congressional races in several states.
He was an editor, assistant to the publisher, and columnist for the Orlando
Sentinel from 1971 to 2001. He wrote a syndicated column which is carried
on LewRockwell.com. Reese served two years active duty in the U.S. Army
as a tank gunner.

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