DOGE is an Oxymoron: Unchecked “Democracy” is the Problem

Unlike the private sector, where operational efficiency is necessary to survive, the public sector is and always has been inherently inefficient. But that’s not the main problem. Think of federal public polices justified as being in the “public interest” as a building. On the upper floors are the best of them, the merely inefficient. At the mezzanine level are those suffering from extensive waste, fraud and abuse. On the ground floor are policies and programs rife with self-dealing and crony capitalism. Down in the basement is the “temple of virtue” where taxpayers are sacrificed to multiple ideological isms.

DOGE is peeking inside the locked doors on all four levels. As DOGE exposes “Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap,” politicians cry foul, as “they were implemented (by us) democratically. To paraphrase Churchill, “democracy is less bad than totalitarianism,” but, he might have added “generally worse than competitive private markets.” At this stage in US democracy, DOGE revelations have lost some of their shock value as commonplace, and politicians emphasize their good intent. DOGE needs to demonstrate that “good intentions” often lead to bad outcomes, and do not justify corruption in any case.

DOGE alone can only win a few skirmishes against Congress and its massive army of rent-seekers feeding off their largess. With public understanding and support, the Trump Administration could bring about more permanent structural changes that provide greater voter control.

Life is a Competition

Americans love sports, from 5 & 6-year-old soccer leagues through high school, college and pro teams, where the competition to succeed is intense. Pro sports is a business, as the recent Luka Donic trade to the Lakers reminds us, with winners and losers. It is incredibly “democratic” as millions of fans choose what players to follow, games to attend or stream at the posted price, and owners respond continuously to fan expectations. The competition is subject to a massive set of complicated rules and limitations enforced by referees and judges whose integrity is subjected to coaches’ challenge, instant replay and fan fury. That reflects the system of checks and balances that a competitive private market incorporates.

Now imagine a pro sports league designed and governed by the most honest and altruistic national politicians. They would deem it unfair to pay some athletes more than others, or to exclude the weak or physically impaired from the competition. Winners would be determined by political deal making in smoke-filled back rooms. Prices would be determined according to “ability to pay” and ticket purchases would be mandatory whether or not attending the games, with revenues first flowing through party coffers. Fans would be told who to root for and losing teams and cities would be declared winners so as not to result in hurt feelings. Voting against this system would result in your team being designated the loser but you would still be required to buy the tickets. That’s a metaphor for our current “altruistic” federal democracy.

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A Barrage of Narratives

I was trying to generate an image of Trump riding a war eagle and leading a barrage of narratives to overwhelm the Left’s defenses but my prompt engineering skills aren’t up to it today.

So two notes about the past few days.

The first is about this piece from John Konrad:

I opened my NYTimes app today. They’re trying, but they can’t keep up. News that broke just hours ago is already off the homepage.

THIS IS CRUCIAL

The entire liberal deep state command and control system is broken. Let me explain.

The NYTimes’ primary function isn’t journalism. It’s narrative coordination—setting the frame so the entire political-media machine knows how to think about an issue before it takes off.

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Random Thoughts (10): Stories for Our Time

I wasn’t planning on posting again so soon, I was working on a nifty piece about guacamole for the weekend, but even given the extraordinary times we live in these are some of the most extraordinary days that I can remember.

If you were going to write a novel based on the past few weeks, it would get rejected by a publisher as too far out there to be credible, because it would read as mash-up of “Bonfire of the Vanities” meets “Seven Days in May” meets “What About Bob?”

One

The Democrats finally found a stop-line for their rout and they are going to fight on… USAID. Press conferences and political theater outside of the shuttered USAID HQ. Shutting down the Senate confirmation process for Trump nominees. The media stating that the world will starve.

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Quote of the Day

Palmer Luckey:

DeepSeek is legitimately impressive, but the level of hysteria is an indictment of so many.

The $5M number is bogus. It is pushed by a Chinese hedge fund to slow investment in American AI startups, service their own shorts against American titans like Nvidia, and hide sanction evasion. America is a fertile bed for psyops like this because our media apparatus hates our technology companies and wants to see President Trump fail.

We have so many useful idiots uncritically reporting Chinese propaganda as fact because on some level, they want it to be true. They love seeing hundreds of billions of dollars wiped off the market cap off our largest companies.

Considering Media Teflon

You won’t have your names when you ride the big airplane, All they will call you will be “deportees

Oh, pity the poor establishment media folks, the woke clergy, and the professional bleeding-heart progressive activists, all making woeful faces and lamenting regarding the round-up and repatriation of masses of criminal illegal immigrants. It’s as if they all honestly believe that the masses of illegals are all doe-eyed innocent widdle cheeeldren and humble suffering agricultural workers, all packed off by their cheating employers once the harvest season is finished. The bubble in which these sentiments are enshrined as gospel is being severely battered over this last week as it becomes apparent that many, many Americans of various ethnic backgrounds and incomes welcome the ICE roundups and deportations with cheers of rapturous approval. Imagine that.

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