Continuity in our Federal Government and Constitution Day

"Left full rudder." "Aye-Aye Captain, but the rudder is already left full."

B-Daddy here. It might surprise you to know that the lead blogger and two of his guest bloggers on BwD are employees of the federal government. There I said it. I said it to raise an important point. I think that the country remains one where the rule of law prevails and the business of the federal government by and large continues regardless of administration. I think I speak for KT and Dean, when I say that the initiatives we were working before the election of 2008 have not changed appreciably since. A project in which I have a management role started early in the Bush years, but it's success has been published on the Obama White House web site.

This is both a strength and a weakness of our system. Because the Federal Agencies operate under the laws passed by the Congress, they move out, slowly perhaps, to execute the mission given to them by law. When a new administration is in power, the mission doesn't change. Except for the actual war fighting execution, where the President is in charge as Commander in Chief, even if he doesn't want to face up to that, even the Defense Department cruises along building systems and training forces without huge changes.

That three civil servants like ourselves are so conservative should also say something about the limits of government. We have seen government from the inside, and know that it should run as little of the rest of America as possible. This is because the nature of government is to balance competing interests of fairness, equity and prevention of abuse, often at the expense of efficiency and effectiveness. We expect no less in a republic "of the people." It just means that we can't count on government to deliver in areas of the economy where efficiency and innovation are counted on to produce ever increasing standards of living.

The left should take note of this. In their fear of the crushing cultural and economic might of big corporations they turn to government as counterweight. But that only crushes the entrepreneurial spirit that makes us all more well off. The true antidote to corporate might is more competition. Look at how we have seen the rise and fall of great corporations in the last century, (GM, IBM, Microsoft, Wal-Mart) in ways that had little to do with leftist policies. Further, as the left attempts to increase regulation and government control, we witness the process of regulatory capture, by which corporations insulate themselves from competition through the regulatory process.

The answer is more of the rough and tumble of the free market. But because the people make choices the left doesn't like and because there is always a new corporate boogey man, they are having none of it.

Anyway, a belated Happy Constitution Day to you all. Thank God we live under the best written and longest lasting constitution in the free world.