Incompetence

A few years ago, I heard someone say, “the job of congress is not to pass laws, but to stop bad bills from becoming law.” Now, I can’t help but see government through that lens.

The idea is that change should not come easy. One reason is that frequent change could cause instability. Another reason is that bad change (with potentially long-lasting harmful effects) is often as much an option as good change. We can disagree “all day” on what change is good an what isn’t. But, for the sake of our future, we should force debate as much as possible.

Still, it can be frustrating to watch congress fail again and again to pass laws. One recent example is the second round of the COVID-19 relief that congress has not been able to agree on—even as previous relief expires. Another example is healthcare, which just about everyone wants to fix but remains a main issue election after election. The common sentiment is that congress can never get anything done.

I can imagine the despair of progressives, who demand deep social/economic changes and see little to no action. I can also understand conservatives, who see rapid change as a threat to longstanding tradition and culture.

The thing I’ve come to realize for myself, though, is that I prefer government incompetence over government oppression. In other words, I’d rather have a slow, weak government than one that easily impose its will. I have many reasons, but I will highlight two.

First, the historical trend is that powerful governments eventually become corrupt. Whether or not that is true, we are better off assuming that it is so. To add to this, I’ll echo the observation that government only seems to grow in power—never shrink. Based on this alone, it is reasonable to advocate for a limited government. Maybe it’s a hard sell to claim that government will become evil. Then again, think of all the people who presently have no problem calling Trump evil. The same was said of Obama (by a different group of people) and the same will always be said of every administration. One only needs to be on the “losing side” of an election to appreciate forced weakness in the form of checks and balances.

Second, mob rule is (apparently) a real threat. By mob rule I’m referring to the times when a minority of [very] vocal people rise up to demand change, often in reaction to certain events. The problem is that these sudden uproars are often emotion-driven calls based on anecdotal evidence rather than statistical realities. Such movements can be effectively filtered out if the process for change is hard-fought and requires lengthy civil discussion. After all is said, there may be no action at all and we may suffer bad consequences because of it. That is simply the price we have to pay as a civil society. At least, the mechanism for change will remain in tact for future attempts—not destroyed by chaotic misuse.