VDH asks Who is Afraid of Big Government?

Victor Davis Hanson in Pajamas Media.
You need to read it all but here are some parts to whet your appetite for more:

There is no reason to review all the standard reasons why the American people are terrified of an all-powerful federal or state government. The case has been made in thousands of elegant treatises and books, and is best reflected in the Constitution and the written work of the Founding Fathers.

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But let me list a few other, less elegantly expressed worries, many anecdotal in nature.

1) Juvenal’s “Who will police the police?”

One of the scariest things about government is its exemption from laws by virtue of its monopoly on lawmaking and enforcement. I see this every day, from the mundane to the profound.

Go to any downtown in America, and one can see how some supposedly efficient, job-creating con-artist once promised a new hotel, stadium, or enterprise zone, then convinced the city council to steal land from some and hand it over to others (e.g., him)—and left an ungodly mess in his wake…..

…..On the more mundane level, this week I saw the following examples of government exemption. A local police car randomly did a running stop at a 4-way intersection (should I have called 911?); a city bus driver (very common) cell phoning against California law (report him to the cop running the intersection?); a city garbage truck spewing trash out its top as it sped down freeway 41 (call his cousins at the state EPA?)….

2) The Power of Envy

Government service offers veritable tenure and steady wages for the price of bypassing the American dream of “getting rich” in the private sector. Most follow the odds and realize that a federal bird in the hand is better than two in the private bush.

Yet legions of government (and often union) employees by needs must audit often far richer others, whether at the IRS, the county planner’s office, the zoning authority, or the state regulator. And here the public auditor can, by virtue of his unassailable position, quite easily stymie his private sector upstart counterpart…..

….I am all for codes, building inspectors, and plant regulators, but an excess of such investigators quickly creates a priestly class who take their own frustrations out on supposedly better off others.

3) Patronage

In California there are hundreds of worthless state boards with six-figure, governor-appointed officials. We assume that in our term-limited state, these sinecures are the refuges of former state assembly and senate politicians. In fact, as soon as we elect our state officials, we accept that they will cut deals with state executives to provide for their upcoming retirements—“I’ll vote for this, if in 4 years I get that spot on the state water board or the state fair practices committee”…..

4. The Greek four-step

I once lived in Greece for over two years, and visit there every other summer. Any casual observer could have predicted its present fiscal meltdown, which is emblematic of big government socialism….

5. Ministry of Truth

Government has the power of symbols to create alternate, scary realities. This week driving to and from the coast, I crossed several stretches of “The Honorable Joe Blow” freeway, and saw dozens of signs that essentially said “this project brought to you by big government stimulus.”….

….We all need government for defense, security, and infrastructure. But the more of it, the more dangerous—and creepy—our lives become.