. . . muttered the ogre

John Weidner (Random Jottings) expresses something I had in mind:

Suppose thousands, nay tens of thousands of Federal employees were replaced whenever the White House changed hands. The continuity of well-established procedures would be broken. But, so would the continuity of entrenched lethargy and indifference. The new people would lack much of the knowlege needed for their jobs, but they would also be willing to try new ideas, and would know how things are done in the private sector. Some of the new people would be incompetent or venal, but . . . well, you know where that one’s going.

Weidner also touches on the former practice of selling commissions in the British army. Sir Iain Moncreiffe (1919-85) made the interesting point that this meant most officers were able to resign in protest without endangering their livelihood. (Indeed in many regiments an officer could not live on his salary.)

See also this memoir by David Hardy. (local copy, just in case)

I’ve seen several comments, on as many sites, saying that automatic runoff elections (as used in Australia, I believe) would eliminate the problem of spoiler candidates. True, but I prefer approval voting, which is simpler, requiring only one procedural change: stop discarding ballots as ‘spoiled’ for marking too many candidates. (I guess it’s not so simple where voting machines are used; at least some such machines physically prevent multi-voting.) An approval count also gives a single number which meaningfully measures the winner’s mandate.

Tony Woodlief quotes Murray Rothbard:

“Most classical liberal or laissez-faire activists have adopted, perhaps without much thoughtful consideration, a simple strategy that we may call ‘educationism.’ Roughly: We have arrived at the truth, but most people are still deluded believers in error; therefore, we must educate these people – via lectures, discussions, books, pamphlets, newspapers, or whatever – until they become converted to the correct point of view.”

They both apparently think this is pointless, and what libertarians ought to be doing is whatever it takes to get elected. But Woodlief, seemingly unaware of the irony, goes on Continue reading →