Posted by
Andrews on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 12:56:06 PM
I was doing something I have not done for a while, actually reading the pundits on TH, and I found something interesting.
Thomas Sowell's latest column, decrying the rush to pass health care reform regardless of quality, had two paragraphs of great interest to me:
Legislation is not the only sign of this administration's contempt
for the intelligence of the public and for the safeguards of democratic
government.
The appointment of White House "czars" to make policy across
a wide spectrum of issues-- unknown people who get around the
Constitution's requirement of Senate confirmation for Cabinet members--
is yet another sign of the mindset that sees the fundamental laws and
values of this country as just something to get around, in order to
impose the will of an arrogant elite.
The reason these paragraphs fascinate me is that, for a very long time, it has been my contention that liberalism, and every variety of authoritarian government ("
The Inherent Disappointment of Authoritarianism") is based on absolutely nothing but the belief that the public is too stupid to know what is good for it, while the all knowing state is formed of an elite whose will should replace that of the ignorant masses.
I know it is hardly a novel insight, that politicians are arrogant, but I have not seen anyone else argue that arrogance alone is all that is needed to justify every variety of interventionism.
To see my earlier thoughts on this, I recommend reading "
Those Other People", "
Our View of Our Fellow Citizens", "
Seeing People As Stupid", "
Appealing to Arrogance", "
The Citizen Dichotomy", "
In A Nutshell", "
Cognitive Dissonance Part 2", "
Changing Incentives", "
Three Types of Supporters of Big Government" and "
Bad Economics Part 9".