As described by the publishers, Give Me Liberty “illustrates the breathtaking changes that can take place when ordinary citizens engage in the democratic system the way the founders intended and tells how to use that system, right now, to change your life, your community, and ultimately, the nation.”

As the goal of this book is to encourage Americans to stand up and take back their liberties, Ms. Wolf hopes that citizens will join her at events she is doing around the country. At these events, attendees will engage in what she is calling a “Citizens’ Conversation and Call to Arms” and will also meet and organize with others who want to defend liberty.

I just got this in an email from American Freedom Campaign.

Bob in HI

For a while, the toobz were clearly overwhelmed and tossed me to the hounds of Nowheresville … mayhap the ‘excitement’ of a 504.48 point drop in the DOW discumbualated the toobulators resulting in underwhelming ‘performance’ across the ether threadways everywhere.

Things certainly are ‘interesting’.

Now to read.

Profound thanks to Professor Lederman.

I think that pendulum would have to swing pretty far in the opposite direction before we will have an unaccountable, independant beaurocracy on our hands. *g*

Maybe there ought to be fewer exempt positions in the Plum Book and more merit hiring?

The Bush Administration was highly abusive in even its political appointees, not just at Justice in all departments and agencies. I can not think of one where this did not happen. But this would never have occurred or much less so if there had been real pushback from Congress and the Democrats. The Addington quote I cited above really encapsulates what the Bush approach was. They were going to push until somebody pushed back, but almost nobody did. And in those cases Cheney was usually there with his work arounds. For all the drama of the confrontation over warrantless wiretapping, the Administration ended up with pretty much everything they wanted.

There are problems with a purely merit system. Who administers it? Who decides what constitutes merit? How do we avoid an autonomous bureaucracy that operates virtually independently of the people and their elected representatives? We have seen gross politicization but there is the danger that the reverse would be as bad.