“How exactly do you propose to run things without petty bureaucrats?”

Hiring people who aren’t petty would be a good start…

But seriously, the answer is simple: Term limits. Nobody is allowed to be a bureaucrat (or work for the government at all, save for the military and perhaps the post office) for more than ten years. After that, they have to go out into the real world and do a job that actually produces something.

This dovetails nicely with my solution for the public schools, which are spending way too much money on non-teaching positions: Administrators must also remain teachers. This would keep them grounded in the real world and away from the proverbial ivory tower, with less time to figure out what to ban besides Skittles. (And besides, what can someone who hasn’t taught for thirty years possibly do to help teachers? That’s why administrators should be there in the first place–not to come up with their own agendas, which often have little to do with education.)

“The bureaucrats are just trying to do their assigned task, not trying to control your life.”

Well, maybe it starts out that way, but we’ve all seen, more often than not, how it ends up.