This is the most hopeful piece I have read today.
I love Thomas Sowell.
"...we need to think about what there is about current political practices
that repeatedly brings to power such a counterproductive set of people.
Those we call “public servants” have in fact become public masters. And
they act like it.
"None of this is inevitable. In fact, this pattern is largely the
culmination of political trends set in motion during the 1930s and
reaching a climax today. During the 1920s, the national debt was reduced
and the role of government scaled back. Unemployment was as low as 1.8
percent."
"President Calvin Coolidge, with every prospect of being
reelected in 1928, declared simply, “I do not choose to run.” Later, in
his memoirs, he explained how dangerous it is to have anyone remain too
long in the White House, surrounded by flattery and insulated from
reality. What a contrast that attitude is with the attitude of the
current occupant of the White House!"
"The rise of the permanent political class in Washington came with the
rise of a vast government apparatus with unprecedented amounts of money
and power to control and corrupt individuals, institutions, and the
fabric of the whole society."
"The first step in limiting, and then scaling back, government itself
must be limiting the time that anyone can remain in office — preferably
to one term, to make it harder to become career politicians, a species
we can well do without."