Why you don’t want to let “intellectuals” anywhere near power:
Unfortunately, contemporary Washington is calibrated to defer to experts who defer to politicians, providing an intellectual Praetorian Guard for the constant growth of a leviathan. As Denver University professor David Ciepley noted, “Starting in the First World War, and much more so during the New Deal and World War II, American social scientists became part of the autonomous state themselves, helping staff the mushrooming government agencies.” The closer that intellectuals get to politicians, the more weaselly they usually become.
Playing off Mr. Gruber’s derision of average Americans, one wag suggested a new acronym — L.I.E. — for Low Information Experts. Mr. Gruber and many other professors have gotten rich by pretending that government is far more competent than it actually is. Economist Robert Skidelsky, writing about the history of modern socialism, observed that “the collectivist belief system existed independently of the facts of modern life.” The same is true of the academic cadre who profit by vindicating endless government interventions that breed chaos and dependency.
I’d like to think that people will take a lesson from this (particularly with regard to climate models), but history doesn’t make me hopeful.
I’ve been thinking of Bovard lately, in light of the rise of King Barry and how the “liberals” (and by “liberals” I mean of course “tax-happy, coercion-addicted, power-tripping State-fellators”) in ObamaNation have come more and more out of the closet about their authoritarianism. I think a lot of them don’t even use the old shibboleths of “It’s for your own good” or “It’s for the Kids” to justify their own power trips; pretty much it’s now just “Because I feel like it.” Bovard wrote a very disturbing book, LOST RIGHTS, about how the State has gained more and more power while the individual has lost more and more liberty–and that book came out in the Clinton Era! A sequel or new edition, updated for the reign of “Il Dufe,” would be even more depressing and scary. Although Obama’s usual gang of useful idiots (several of whom post here regularly) could be counted to rally to his side and tell us to stop freaking out and calmly accept our shackles.
“Lost ‘rights’? You have no ‘rights,’ except to love Dear Leader and do whatever he tells you to!”–Baghdad Jim.
“Liberty–it’s a trap!”–Admiral Gerrib of the Good Ship “Stockholm Syndrome”
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Here are “Grubers in History:”
http://www.peekinthewell.net/blog/grubers-in-history/
We should trust the scientist Gruber. His support of Obamacare is based purely on his purity. He doesn’t have any financial interest unlike those dastardly insurance companies. Oh, what’s that? The insurance companies support Obamacare?