Government-By-Moron
Our Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, recently set social media on fire by misquoting Ronald Reagan in spectacular fashion:
As a friend noted, this is "probably one of the top five best-known Reagan utterances, one which sums up his whole outlook, and this dolt is unaware."
Cardona is one of fifteen "secretaries" that, along with ten other members and the Vice President, comprise the President's Cabinet.
He is fifteenth in line for the Presidency.
Selected by Biden and confirmed by the Senate, he should be one of our Best-and-Brightest.
Fortunately, thanks to this forever-soundbite, and barring a Designated-Survivor-esque catastrophe, we are likely never to see him in a position of authority higher than his current job. He has satisfied the Peter Principle - he has reached his level of incompetence.
Unfortunately, he has direct access to Joe Biden, oversees 4400 employees, and has a budget of nearly $150B to muck around with.
Cardona was embroiled a couple years ago in a controversy regarding a letter from the National School Boards Association implying that parents protesting school boards should be treated per Patriot Act powers meant for "domestic terrorism." Cardona solicited this letter, and faced calls to resign in its wake.
Our government has accrued to itself, across decades, an enormous amount of power. The Founding Fathers would be utterly shocked by its size, scope, breadth, and depths (including of depravity). We, at the VERY least, should expect that those who are position to wield that power should be unsarcastically the Best-and-Brightest. If you're a regular reader, you know I frequently use that eponym in mockery. With good reason, I dare say.
One isolated bit of ignorance doesn't and shouldn't be taken to convey a broader ignorance or stupidity. The accumulation of evidence, horizontally across the top and vertically across the years, justifies those of us who conclude that we are being governed by morons. Which is at the heart of Reagan's quip, and which is why we libertarians want government to be as small as possible. Rather than being the go-to for solving our problems, it is a necessary evil whose power and reach should be just large enough to perform the basic duties specifically enumerated in the Constitution.
Or, as Reagan quotably noted in his first inaugural address:
One can only imagine how this piece of brilliance was received by the ignorant masses to which it was intended, and for whom it almost certainly provided balm and reassurance. Will they ever know the profound ignorance from which it was uttered? Probably not.
It just struck me that, when the pool from which you have to choose is filled with morons, morons will be chosen. Used to be the cream rose to the top - now it's the morons.
I guess morons weigh the same as ducks.