ERIN Digital & Phone net Tuesday November 19, 2024; Go HERE for Current SOI
The Founders were right to posit that a breakdown of the limits of government would cause a breakdown of consent. Only 22 percent of likely voters say the current government has the consent of the governed....The root of this crisis is that over the past two generations, we have come to accept as routine the idea that various special interests are allowed to capture pieces of the government?executive departments, regulatory agencies, congressional committees, appropriators, parts of the tax code?and use governmental power to tax, spend, regulate, subsidize, prosecute, or forbear for the advantage of the interest and its allies in the bureaucracy....This concern was not abstract, because in 1776 over half the members of Parliament were bought supporters of the king. The tea dumped into Boston Harbor in 1773 belonged to the East India Company, a monopoly created by Parliament whose rack rents in India had contributed to ghastly famine in Bengal in 1770. We tend to view the Boston Tea Party as a bit of a frat-boy lark, but it was deadly serious business....
