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Right! Naturally, our Congress is full of technical and administrative expertise and totally has the time, patience, and will to cleanly and carefully craft th

Right! Naturally, our Congress is full of technical and administrative expertise and totally has the time, patience, and will to cleanly and carefully craft the wide body of regulation we've grown to require for a smooth and healthy and productive society. No reason for those awful technocrats to usurp such authority when we've got a capable and knowledgable legislative branch capable of doing the work just as well.

mothballed 4mo ago
Don't worry, we're going to enjoy the fruits of your thought process real well and good -- the very last guy left in the House with any constitutional focus just got blasted out with the most expensive outside funding campaign against a rep in the entire history of the USA. It looks like the bureaucratic state is just getting on its next level roll, so enjoy the ride. A few of you may even realize in the coming years why the 10th amendment wasn't meant to just be an inconvenience to ignore. But I'm not dumb enough to think you'll believe my words, you'll only learn by experience.
- mindslight 4mo ago
  I've been where you are. In your coming years you will realize that the bureaucracy had at least brought us stability, prosperity, and a modicum of protection against abuse from big business, the rough edges for small businesses and individuals near the edge of the law notwithstanding. Characterizing Massie's loss as an aspect of that bureaucracy is a mistake - Trumpism is a repudiation of the bureaucracy in favor of autocracy, while the all of the authoritarianism sticks around (or even grows!). Expect those rough edges to become much more arbitrary and capricious. And no, accelerationism or "I told you so" won't save you.
ceejayoz 4mo ago
> Naturally, our Congress is full of technical and administrative expertise… Congress knew of that issue; for decades, Congress has delegated the nitty gritty to regulatory agencies, who employ said experts. SCOTUS, on the other hand, are the idiots you seek. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Raimondo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Ra...
pdonis 4mo ago
> the wide body of regulation we've grown to require for a smooth and healthy and productive society. If you actually believe this is true, I have some sad news for you. Does the term "regulatory capture" mean anything to you? > those awful technocrats If you actually believe the "technocrats" have the knowledge required to craft regulations that actually are a net benefit, again, I have some sad news for you.
- MattPalmer1086 4mo ago
  Your solution is?
  - pdonis 4mo ago
    There is no magic solution to the "problem" of "how to dictate rules to a large society that will keep things smooth and productive". The problem is fundamentally intractable if you insist on looking at it that way. There is another option, which is to not dictate rules at all, unless you absolutely have to in order to have a civil society in the first place. For example, we have laws against things like murder and theft and fraud, because you can't have a civil society if those things aren't deterred and punished. But the vast majority of the laws and regulations we have in place now are not doing that. They're attempts to micromanage from the top something that fundamentally cannot be micromanaged from the top. Nobody has enough knowledge to do that. So we should stop doing it.
    - MattPalmer1086 4mo ago
      Giving up is not a strategy. Regulations are painful in that they obviously reduce economic productivity, but not having any at all is pretty much guaranteed to be a disaster. For example, allowing poisonous chemicals in your food supply or drinking water is insane. Unless you are OK with the free market sorting all that out (after your family dies horribly).
      - pdonis 4mo ago
        > Giving up is not a strategy. Nor is it what I advocated. > Regulations are painful in that they obviously reduce economic productivity That's usually true, but it's not the main problem. The main problem is that the regulations don't actually regulate, in the sense they need to. All they do is entrench the incumbent corporations that paid good money for them, by making it harder for competitors to enter their markets. > allowing poisonous chemicals in your food supply or drinking water is insane. Sure. And humans somehow managed to obtain food and water that didn't have those things for thousands of years, even though there were no government regulations prohibiting them. How do you suppose that happened? > Unless you are OK with the free market sorting all that out (after your family dies horribly). You're assuming that food and water providers would be able to do such things in a "free market". But doing such things is obviously bad for business, so providers would have a strong incentive not to do it in a free market, since in a free market, doing things that are bad for business makes you go out of business. In our current regulatory environment, however, large corporations can do many things that are bad for business, as long as they can get government regulators to agree to let them. For an example from a few years ago, a major aicraft manufacturer got the FAA to approve a change to one of its oldest aircraft types that ended up killing two airplanes full of people. How? Because the FAA didn't even look at the change: the "regulation" had evolved to the point where the FAA just took the manufacturer's word for it that everything was OK. In a free market, such an aircraft manufacturer would be out of business. But of course in our current regulatory environment that can't happen, because regulation has forced aircraft manufacturers to amalgamate to the point that neither of the two biggest ones can ever be allowed to go out of business--too many long chains of dominoes, including much of the US's military capability (and not just in airplanes), depend on them. Tell me again how regulations make things better?

mothballed 4mo ago

Don't worry, we're going to enjoy the fruits of your thought process real well and good -- the very last guy left in the House with any constitutional focus just got blasted out with the most expensive outside funding campaign against a rep in the entire history of the USA. It looks like the bureaucratic state is just getting on its next level roll, so enjoy the ride. A few of you may even realize in the coming years why the 10th amendment wasn't meant to just be an inconvenience to ignore. But I'm not dumb enough to think you'll believe my words, you'll only learn by experience.

mindslight 4mo ago
I've been where you are. In your coming years you will realize that the bureaucracy had at least brought us stability, prosperity, and a modicum of protection against abuse from big business, the rough edges for small businesses and individuals near the edge of the law notwithstanding. Characterizing Massie's loss as an aspect of that bureaucracy is a mistake - Trumpism is a repudiation of the bureaucracy in favor of autocracy, while the all of the authoritarianism sticks around (or even grows!). Expect those rough edges to become much more arbitrary and capricious. And no, accelerationism or "I told you so" won't save you.

ceejayoz 4mo ago

> Naturally, our Congress is full of technical and administrative expertise… Congress knew of that issue; for decades, Congress has delegated the nitty gritty to regulatory agencies, who employ said experts. SCOTUS, on the other hand, are the idiots you seek. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Raimondo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Ra...

pdonis 4mo ago

> the wide body of regulation we've grown to require for a smooth and healthy and productive society. If you actually believe this is true, I have some sad news for you. Does the term "regulatory capture" mean anything to you? > those awful technocrats If you actually believe the "technocrats" have the knowledge required to craft regulations that actually are a net benefit, again, I have some sad news for you.

MattPalmer1086 4mo ago
Your solution is?
- pdonis 4mo ago
  There is no magic solution to the "problem" of "how to dictate rules to a large society that will keep things smooth and productive". The problem is fundamentally intractable if you insist on looking at it that way. There is another option, which is to not dictate rules at all, unless you absolutely have to in order to have a civil society in the first place. For example, we have laws against things like murder and theft and fraud, because you can't have a civil society if those things aren't deterred and punished. But the vast majority of the laws and regulations we have in place now are not doing that. They're attempts to micromanage from the top something that fundamentally cannot be micromanaged from the top. Nobody has enough knowledge to do that. So we should stop doing it.
  - MattPalmer1086 4mo ago
    Giving up is not a strategy. Regulations are painful in that they obviously reduce economic productivity, but not having any at all is pretty much guaranteed to be a disaster. For example, allowing poisonous chemicals in your food supply or drinking water is insane. Unless you are OK with the free market sorting all that out (after your family dies horribly).
    - pdonis 4mo ago
      > Giving up is not a strategy. Nor is it what I advocated. > Regulations are painful in that they obviously reduce economic productivity That's usually true, but it's not the main problem. The main problem is that the regulations don't actually regulate, in the sense they need to. All they do is entrench the incumbent corporations that paid good money for them, by making it harder for competitors to enter their markets. > allowing poisonous chemicals in your food supply or drinking water is insane. Sure. And humans somehow managed to obtain food and water that didn't have those things for thousands of years, even though there were no government regulations prohibiting them. How do you suppose that happened? > Unless you are OK with the free market sorting all that out (after your family dies horribly). You're assuming that food and water providers would be able to do such things in a "free market". But doing such things is obviously bad for business, so providers would have a strong incentive not to do it in a free market, since in a free market, doing things that are bad for business makes you go out of business. In our current regulatory environment, however, large corporations can do many things that are bad for business, as long as they can get government regulators to agree to let them. For an example from a few years ago, a major aicraft manufacturer got the FAA to approve a change to one of its oldest aircraft types that ended up killing two airplanes full of people. How? Because the FAA didn't even look at the change: the "regulation" had evolved to the point where the FAA just took the manufacturer's word for it that everything was OK. In a free market, such an aircraft manufacturer would be out of business. But of course in our current regulatory environment that can't happen, because regulation has forced aircraft manufacturers to amalgamate to the point that neither of the two biggest ones can ever be allowed to go out of business--too many long chains of dominoes, including much of the US's military capability (and not just in airplanes), depend on them. Tell me again how regulations make things better?