This blog contains generalities. There is no discussion of specific public health personnel or specific decisions. The intent is to articulate the general concept of civilian control, as opposed to control by narrow professionals who see the world and its problems from their narrow or one-sided perspectives.
“Civilian control of the military” places the making of the big strategic military decisions in the hands of the civilian leadership. This is a long-held principle of organization in our country. The civilian leadership is not equivalent to the civilians, but more on that later.
One idea behind this kind of organization is that military control leads to too much power and control in military hands. The military people take a military view. They do not take an overall view that takes into account all the implications of military policies they may favor. With military control predominant over civilian political control, the military may attempt military solutions rather than political solutions. They may try to mobilize the entire population behind military measures. Their priorities will favor the military and they may view the people and their wealth as all open to use by the military. Not being elected, the military are not accountable to votes. They have their own incentives for advancement that may clash with civilian aims and means. Another bad possibility is that military turns its powers against the civilian population or even creates a military dictatorship. There are simply lots of identifiable downsides when civilians do not control the military.
This isn’t to say that America has always followed this idea or applied it well. That’s another story.
The reason for bringing it up today is that the same principle should be guiding us in the realm of public health, climate, the environment, energy, education, law enforcement, welfare and all the other areas in which we’ve constructed Deep State bureaucracies. The same kinds of downsides occur when any of these bureaus gains the power to make strategic decisions. They’ll see the world with blinders on. They’ll see matters narrowly from their specialized standpoints. That’s how they’re trained. In power, they’ll expand their realm as far as they can. Everything will be seen from their point of view, be it a virus, or a polluted river, a lump of coal, vaccination, the power to search your internet travels without a warrant, etc. Government control even with civilian control over all of these areas is already a very bad development; big government is a monkey on our backs. Nonetheless, control by specialized professionals with degrees in their fields, indoctrinated for years in the importance of their work and their specialized fields, this is even worse.
If there’s going to be a public health bureau, then there should be civilian control of the public health bureaucrats. Doctors shouldn’t be in control. They shouldn’t be making the strategic decisions. In cities, counties and states, public health personnel should not be making the strategic decisions. Their advice is one thing, their capacity to supply information is another thing, and their ability to carry out orders is a third thing, but the overall decisions should not be in their hands.
The natural next step is to realize that politicians are also prone to be strongly biased in their decisions and prone to extend their power into every nook and cranny of our lives. The current outbreak of government directives, rules and orders shows this clearly.
Representatives do not really re-present the views of the people who elect them, or only in limited ways. Sure, under pressure, they’ll try to pacify some interest group; but mostly, they too have been trained to favor certain ideas, groups and methods. Many are lawyers and they think they’re there to make laws, and that laws solve problems. They’re willing and ready to pass a law to solve any problem that arises or that they concoct because it has political mileage.
The only solution is to reduce drastically their power, and that means drastically curtailing taxation, borrowing and regulation.
Real thorough-going civilian control is not control by elected civilian leaders, it’s independent and voluntary handling of problems by individuals and their voluntary associations. Civilian leaders are better than professional educated fools who see things narrowly, but they’re both power-hungry. Both will expand power as far as they can.
The over-arching means to get us on some sort of non-suicidal path is to destroy centralized power-structures. Decentralize radically. Accept individual responsibility. Do not attempt to reform government power structures. Reduce their power and grasp at every level. Our coercive organization structures are our enemy, not the people who happen to be occupying their positions. Do not think that by putting in your own party personnel, you’ll be able to rectify our situation. Place no hope in that kind of politics. Learn to live without government. As much as possible, social problems should be addressed by voluntary means. It sounds old-fashioned. And it is. Self-reliance. Emerson wrote about it in 1841.
Big government, even with civilian control, is a bankrupt idea. Look what it’s led to. Government cannot even proficiently handle a virus that’s no worse than a bunch of previous deadly viruses without ravaging our productivity. The political system is so dysfunctional and out of tune that there are some politicians who are acting as if they are trying to keep the country locked down for political gain. Others are promoting their favorite causes and linking them to the novel virus. Some are making crazy comments about testing everyone, vaccinating everyone, etc. before everything is “opened up”, i.e, before freedom to do business is reinstated and the constitutions pasted back together again after being shredded. They’re nuts.
It looks as if the public health contingent, by virtue of their supposed greater knowledge and models, has gained control over the civilian leaders.
9:41 pm on May 15, 2020
