An ungovernable nation

We need a divorce — from Washington.

Reader John McCall, who writes John’s Substack, left an excellent comment yesterday.

He said, “Has it escaped anybody’s attention that this nation is ungovernable? A columnist, yesterday or so, wrote the first of a series on how to fix things. His first post made a cogent case for elimination of Civil Service so that unelected bureaucrats would be much less able to make policy according to their own agenda, rather than carry out the policies agreed to by elected officials.

“Anybody want to lay money on achieving THAT? There is a better chance of scorched earth in Gaza. The Uniparty is busy with destruction of this nation for the rest of us in order to gain it for themselves (and buy time to accomplish such by throwing the rest of us minimal scraps).

“Kurt Schlichter wrote the first part of that (those not yet informed by his warning novels have missed a treat — there is droll humor there in addition to his wisdom and entertaining plot {usual disclaimer by me as to potential gain of any manner as result of recommending such tomes.”

I read comments because of some unsolicited advice Jonah Goldberg gave me: Never read comments. That was back in the day when he thought I was great.

John McCall hit on what the problem is with America. Its government has grown to the point where Washington spends $6 trillion a year. I think. The White House budget proposal does not say how much it wants to spend, but it does say 4 times that the budget will cut the deficit by $1.7 trillion over the next decade. That depends on what the meaning of cut is because only in government do people believe that you increase spending and call it a decrease.

The national debt of $33 trillion and rising is a symptom of the problem, which is a colossal, enormous, gigantic, immense, mammoth, and vast federal government that is peopled by a buttinsky bureaucracy that want to regulate every aspect of your life. The people in DC apparently have no lives so they want to run yours.

Name a human activity that the government does not have its nose in.

Toilets? You cannot use more than 1.6 gallons of water per flush because the government has determined that we must save water because Nevada and other arid places have water shortages.

But Nevada’s water problem stems from the mob building up Las Vegas in the 1950s and federal efforts since then to make it less unlivable. Its population has risen more than 10-fold in the past 60 years as its 285,278 inhabitants in the 1960 Census grew in number to 3,104,614 inhabitants in the 2020 Census.

Instead of banning lawn sprinklers and the like there, the government bans 7 gallon toilets everywhere.

I use this as an example of the stupidity of our overlords in Washington. They have the power to dictate anything and everything, and usually they dictate the wrong thing to do. Making it easier to live in a desert is a dumb move because people will move into the desert and expect water.

I blame Lyndon Johnson for this because before he became president, we had a pretty good thing going. The economy was roaring, factory workers could escape crowded cities for the suburbs and the murder rate was 4.6 people per 100,000 when he took office in 1963.

By the time he left in 1969, the murder rate soared to 7.3. LBJ’s Gun Control Act of 1968 fueled a rise to 10.2 murders per 100,000 by 1980. It took another 30 years to drop that to the low Eisenhower-level homicide rate.

LBJ wanted to leave a giant legacy of winning World War 3 in Vietnam while creating a Great Society back home. He created programs. Chief among them was the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It began in 1965.

58 years later, our cities are crime-ridden toilets (literally in the streets of San Francisco) lined with junkies living in pup tents. Over those 58 years, HUD has spent roughly $3 trillion.

But LBJ wasn’t alone in turning problems into money pits. The Department of Education has federalized local schools. Gone are the Alice and Jerry reading books, which were written and illustrated by schoolteachers. Instead kids get Gender Queer written by an LGBT activist. Thank goodness Johnny can’t read.

Boy, was Ronald Reagan right when he said government is not the solution; it’s the problem.

Lord Acton’s observation that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely left out the part where power makes you stupid.

A government that we created to protect our rights violates them. The Constitution prohibits the government from being racist or sexist. Our government ignores the Constitution by promoting discrimination against white males. As a white male myself, you can see why I have a problem with it.

Clay S. Jenkinson wrote, “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this.”

That’s not the divorce we need. The nation was set up to have red states and blue states. No one expected Rhode Island to be Virginia.

The Civil War over slavery was avoidable in 1850 but then Congress stuck its nose in it and made red states return runaway slaves to the blue states. Six years later, the Supreme Court ruled that a slave has no rights.

The biggest fear of Patrick Henry — who opposed ratification of the Constitution — was the creation of a large central government that ruled the states. Thanks to the ability to coerce states with cash, we live his worst nightmare.

Expecting Congress or a president to fix this problem is like expecting Lizzo to lose weight. Too many people are Rich Men North of Richmond now. The levers of government are so many and so lucrative that no one will give up any power.

What we need to do is get California and Florida to agree to disagree and part company — abandoning the central government. The 50 states form the United States. It is time for all of us to leave the monster we created.