Excellent three-part piece! Depressing, but illuminating, to the extent that light can be emitted by gloom. It reminds me of what happened to Frank Gaffney when he was working on a film that was supposed to be aired on PBS, but whose message ran afoul of the prevailing wisdom. His personal inclinations made him into an alien in the most fundamental sense of the term, one who is deprived of linkage from those who would otherwise be his social peers, or at the minimum, his natural collaborators!
All the devilish mechanisms described by Hans A. von Spakovsky may well be an inevitable consequence of prosperity. As it happens, the ancient Chinese character for “governement agent” clearly represents a fat man sitting under a roof, so the burden of officialdom has been chronicled before!
The drastic measures required to roll back this massive runaway corruption may simply be impossible to even initiate in prosperous times. But prosperity is not to be taken for granted, and burdensome administration is not helping the prospects of economic vigor.
Should things get dicey, the luxury of feeding the fat cats may well evaporate, and the notion of limited government may become appreciated again. I hope we don’t have to wait until the economy crumbles to attack the weight bearing down on it.
