Looking at the Leviathan

Lunch Hour Thoughts #3

On my calendar in my office I noticed that today’s is “Administrative Professionals Day” here in the United States. I promptly celebrated by pouring a small bit of Port into my coffee at my desk. I work in local government, which makes this somewhat entertaining as the Ron Swanson stereotype comes to mind, dreading the fact that everything around me is cluttered with regulation and hen-pecking about making sure things are done the right way while the people just want to build a road. Nothing makes my libertarian phase want to come back like working in government.

Very early one when I first started doing political videos and essays back in October of 2020 I had a keen interest on localism. I still do, but early on I was talking about offices and jobs inside local government that were essential to the function and smooth sailing of local affairs in your area. While we are certainly burdened by the federal leviathan, the average American is woefully illiterate when it comes to their local affairs. County Commissioners, City Managers, Councils of Governments, all play a huge role in how their day to day life goes wherever they live. However this doesn’t mean they exist or operate independently of State government let alone the Feds.

As I sit at my desk here at work I was thinking about the sheer scope and scale of just one department of the federal government that I have to deal with, and then the multitude of other departments that also come into contact with what I do. For most of my twenties, I have been what Curtis Yarvin might call a “Professional Progressive”. I have worked a variety jobs with various titles, grant writer, fundraiser, community relations, grants manager, communications director, and so on. In hindsight I’m blessed I haven’t been properly doxxed (facefag and all that) however I am prepared for when that day comes. I’ve worked dealing with the Federal Transit Authority, the USDA, and Housing and Urban Development and plenty of state and local authorities on a variety of topics and projects.

I don’t say these things as to flex (most bureaucrats shouldn’t) but it has offered me a unique opportunity to see just the sheer gigantism of the American state. It’s situationally robust, government shutdowns affect all but so much of the money- grants, loans, investment, subsidies, remarkably a fill-in-the-blank system based upon your needs as long as you’ve got your SAM registration and a working UEI number. The amount of growth of things like “Councils of Governments” to which according to the National Association of Regional Councils exploded in growth in the 1960s and 70s, to where of the 39,000 local, general purpose governments in the United States (counties, cities, townships, towns, villages, boroughs) a total of more than 35,000 are served by COGs and RCs. It’s a ratrace for funding, the “more money for them programs” isn’t just a meme with respects to certain demographics being subsidized outright, but also applies to rural and suburban areas as well that aren’t as diverse as other parts of the country.

Not too long ago, I was on Patrick Casey’s show Restoring Order discussing the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott. The amount of money she’s donated to various groups since 2020, from racial justice focused non-profits to other progressive causes, is the grease that gets the wheels moving when certain organizations don’t apply for federal dollars. Although countless non-profits (and private citizens) made gangbusters with the Paycheck Protection Program during covid. Of course Ms. Scott has spent tens of millions if not more since then on other progressive causes, and the patronage network increases. Such groups work closely with already captured state, federal, and local institutions, especially in urban areas to where the Progressive Public Private Partnership emerges as has been described by everyone from Garet Garett to Nick Land.

Not to give too much away as to what I do, I think when one considers the size of government, especially if you’ve ever worked in any part of it, you want to maximize its efficiency, although for many places it is basically a place where some of the worst people you can’t get fired either due to fears of a discrimination lawsuit (what’s happening in that Sheetz lawsuit will soon come for the civil service in a more formalized way,) or that no one cares enough to run an election against officials who have been there for decades. The rat race for funding too means that those wishing to escape are now in a conflict for federal dollars (that really shouldn’t be there) to get new roads, community centers, and water towers built. These are things that are just coming out of HUD for example, not to mention USDA Rural Development grants and the like.

As I get ready to clock back in (the port in the coffee is gone too,) this is all just one piece of the leviathan of the American Federalist System. Some parts of it are a dead letter, especially as states are dominated and ruled by a coercive federal system where money is just as a much of a weapon as a bus full of illegal aliens. More attention should be discussed on the right of the NGO-USG relationship, things like Community Block Development Grants, and the countless millions that states and federal agencies spend on consultants to actually function. There is a competency crisis, but there is also a consultancy crisis as well.

More on this to come, we’re all blind men grabbing parts of the elephant, but I think we have the capability to size up our problem for what it actually alongside our theoretical and political frameworks.