As Eugene McCarthy, of all people, observed: “The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.”
Luckily the United States is blessed with one of the most incompetent governments in the developed world. It isn’t simply that the Americans have a bloated government, it’s that they have a bloated government that accomplishes far less dollar for dollar than the bloated governments of other leading nations.
This is why Americans should have no fear of Canadian style socialized health care being imposed on them, their government isn’t smart enough to run it. That said Obamacare is turning out to be something that makes Canadian Medicare look like the Swiss Army. I grimly await the flood of American health care refugees trickling north of the 49th. That’s bad news for them and worse news for us. What kept the Canadian system semi-functional was the American escape hatch. If upper middle class Canadians can no longer sneak across to Buffalo, Burlington or Seattle for treatment, that puts more pressure on our system.
From time to time I’m asked why government is so incompetent. It’s such a truism among conservatives, libertarians and classical liberals that it’s rarely reflected upon. February is cold in Winnipeg, governments are generally incompetent. We accept these things perhaps too readily. The truism is true, but in assuming it so blithely we fail to communicate its importance to reasonable people who are uncommitted.
Richard Anderson, “The Incompetence of Evil Government”, The Gods of the Copybook Headings, 2014-02-20
February 21, 2014
QotD: The unexpected benefit of government incompetence
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Quotations, USA — Tags: Competence, Obamacare, SocializedMedicine — Nicholas @ 14:56
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