{"id":52619,"date":"2024-05-20T01:00:11","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T05:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=52619"},"modified":"2024-05-19T09:46:09","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T13:46:09","slug":"qotd-selfless-public-servants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/05\/20\/qotd-selfless-public-servants\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: &#8220;Selfless&#8221; public servants"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; padding: 0px 25px 10px 0px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>WARNING: If you&#8217;re an elected government official or if you&#8217;re attached to idealistic notions about such officials, do not read this commentary. It will offend you.<\/p>\n<p>Ideally, government in a democratic republic reflects the will of the people, or at least that of the majority. Citizens vote for candidates whom they believe will best promote the general welfare. Victorious candidates, after pledging to uphold the Constitution, go to state capitals or to Washington, D.C., to do The People&#8217;s business \u2014 to undertake all the good and worthy activities that citizens in their private capacities cannot perform.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, every now and then crooks and demagogues win office, but these are not the norm. Our system of regular, aboveboard democratic elections ensures that officials who do not effectively carry out The People&#8217;s business are thrown from office and replaced by more reliable public servants.<\/p>\n<p>Trouble is, it&#8217;s not true. It&#8217;s a sham. Despite being called &#8220;the Honorable&#8221;, the typical politician is certainly no more honorable than the typical dentist, auto mechanic, Wal-Mart regional manager or any other private citizen.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being referred to as &#8220;public servants&#8221;, politicians serve, first and foremost, their own personal political ambitions and they do so by pandering to narrow special interest groups.<\/p>\n<p>Don Boudreaux, <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.triblive.com\/news\/base-closings\/#ixzz37qOlutOY\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Base Closings&#8221;, <em>Pittsburgh Tribune-Review<\/em><\/a>, 2005-03-18.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WARNING: If you&#8217;re an elected government official or if you&#8217;re attached to idealistic notions about such officials, do not read this commentary. It will offend you. Ideally, government in a democratic republic reflects the will of the people, or at least that of the majority. Citizens vote for candidates whom they believe will best promote [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,84,53,41,13],"tags":[766,755,1144],"class_list":["post-52619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-government","category-politics","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-democracy","tag-incentives","tag-publicchoicetheory"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-dGH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52619"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89096,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52619\/revisions\/89096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}