Undo What You Have Done

This week the Senate will take up the matter of changing its rules to eliminate the ‘filibuster.’  Much will be said about the details of this, so we will not review all that here.

At the ‘talking head’ level of politics, there is often a cry for government to be ‘more efficient’ and ‘more like a business.’  People, it is said, want government to be able to ‘get things done.’  Filibusters, it is said, inhibit the ability of government to get things done.

But the great problem with modern government is that it does far too much.  It is therefore rather idiotic to want it to “get things done” unless you are an enemy of liberty.

There is, perhaps, one category of things we should want government to ‘get done’ and that is the repeal of laws, most of which are crippling obstacles to liberty.  But this is much more accurately seen, not as ‘doing’, but as ‘undoing.’

We don’t need more government doing – we need much more undoing.  Filibusters – and any other mechanism that inhibits the ‘doing’ of government – should be welcomed by those who love liberty.