That Governs Least
By Mitch Berg
On the NARN over the weekend I had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin Williamson, the National Review writer whose latest book, The End Is Near (And It’s Going To Be Awesome) is a fascinating exploration of both the power of the natural human trait of adaptation to solve most problesm – and government’s immunity to it. The book is a smorgasbord of food for thought, and I highly recommend it.
One of the key points is that politics, by the nature of its very immunity to agility and adaptibility, is the worst possible way to allocate resources in a complex society.
With that in mind, Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
The Mayor of Dorset, Minnesota (a tourist town up North in Hubbard County), has a gimmick: they pull names from the hat to see who’s mayor. This year, it’s a 4-year old kid. By all accounts, the town is thriving under his administration.
Wonder if he’d consider moving to St. Paul? We could use someone a little more grown-up in charge of this place.
Joe Doakes
If the Mayor and the entire City Council were replaced by 4-year-olds, it would solve a lot of problems.
No, I’m being neither glib nor hyperbolic.
July 15th, 2013 at 9:35 am
The worst case scenario would be that nobody would notice a difference.
July 15th, 2013 at 11:56 am
In my 10+ years of living in the Twin Cities, I’ve noticed how little the city councils of Mpls and St Paul actually do that is productive. They get money from taxes, the state and federal gov’ts, and have businesses do much of the work. They just hold meetings and decide how to allocate the booty and also come up with new regulations.
They don’t create anything. Even the things they subsidize…such as Target Field, are planned by those in the real world. The architects for example.
The city governments of small towns and small cities often do much more work as they have fewer resources. They have to be creative.
July 15th, 2013 at 11:58 am
To finish my thought, when you Fat Dave Thune and Phyllis Kahn on your councils, you realize how far away big city leadership is from the board of directors/top managment of private business.
July 15th, 2013 at 6:55 pm
If you want to increase efficiency and accountability I think we could look at the 2 and 3-year-old’s.
July 16th, 2013 at 9:28 am
“If the Mayor and the entire City Council were replaced by 4-year-olds, it would solve a lot of problems.”
They’d probably be more effective in pan handling on the Capitol steps.