Trump v. Slaughter concerns more than the fate of the Federal Trade Commission. It’s about competing visions for the future of Western democracy, both implicitly recognizing the same problem: the world, and governments the size of America’s, may have become too technical and complex to be managed in the old way. The Trump Administration's argument, also articulated in this case, calls for enhanced presidential power to take on “headless” bureaucracies, seen as the source of problems. The flip side argued by Brown Jackson (and increasingly by former allies in Europe) calls for more “independent” agencies, who need independence from what they see as the real problem: ignorant voters.
This (inevitably) circles back to questions of free speech and online censorship. The Left loves to say that of course they want free speech but with "guardrails" and "limits" to protect the people. It's for their own good! Who shall determine these guardrails and limits? The "experts."
William F. Buckley had it right: "I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University."
No comments:
Post a Comment