An Incompetent Government Is The Best Government

I’m going to quote a comment I came across on Facebook and I want you to guess what it reminds me of:

It is a shame that he isn’t perfect in his support for human rights issues, but the reality is that he is the only major candidate that would work proactively to drastically address climate change, fraudulent corporate financial activity, worker’s rights, education, single payer health care, mitigating the surveillance state, implementing Keynesian economic programs that actually target the middle class and the impoverished, and restoring balance to corporate and individual taxation.

We need an educated society in order to aim for utopia, and Bernie’s policies are the best of the realistic candidates in this election cycle to move towards that goal. Sucks that he isn’t perfect, but then, who is?

If you guessed it reminds me of Rand Paul supporters you are correct! This quote was in response to somebody who pointed out that Bernie Sanders, like Hillary Clinton, wants to put Edward Snowden on trial, which is inexcusable. But this loyal Bernie supporter had to swoop in and explain how Bernie, even if he isn’t perfect, is still the best choice available.

What amuses me about this is that the “left” and “right” think they’re the opposite of each other. If you put them together in a room they’ll heatedly debate one another because they believe they’re on opposite sides. But when you boil it all down both sides are mirror imagines of each other.

Each side focuses on different details but their prescription is the same: absolute control by the “best” people is the only way to “save” this nation. I’m not entirely sure why anybody would want to save this nation, or any nation for that matter. What value is there is continuing a system where a handful of people hold absolute power over everybody else? Even if we pretend this nation is worth saving, how does giving the best people absolute power assume to accomplish that? Rand Paul supporters believe giving Rand Paul absolute power would save this nation because they believe he is the best candidate. Ditto for Bernie Sanders supporters. But the only way one can really save a nation is to have the most incompetent government possible, which requires having the worse people in positions of power.

Because the presidency comes with executive orders the holder of that position actually enjoys some modicum of power. That being the case the best person to appoint would be somebody who is illiterate, uncharismatic, and is entirely without drive. Rand and Bernie, as hard as it may be to believe, are both literate, charismatic enough to have followings, and driven to push their agenda down the throats of Americans. So they’re both capable of writing executive orders, have a big enough following where their executive orders will enjoy at least some praise, and driven to issue executive orders.

Only under an incompetent government will the people of a nation get along well enough to properly call them a nation. This is because having a competent government means everybody will try to use it to force their beliefs on everybody else. So long as the threat exits fear will divide the people. But having an incompetent government means few will see it as an effective means of forcing their beliefs on everybody else and therefore won’t try. The handful of people who still do view it as an effective means will try to utilize it but it will be a futile effort. In other words people will be able to go on with their lives and not live under constant fear of their neighbor’s agenda.