House of Eratosthenes

And it seems quite out of place. The IRS sends you a letter saying they think you still owe $4,500. They’re probably right — they made sure they had you dead to rights before they sent the letter. But they ask. There’s an appeals process.

Ditto with Facebook removing your content. Sometimes they ask. They provide a way for you to protest the decision. Sometimes the link even works! They ask, don’t tell, even if they mean to tell and their openness to the dissenting opinion is merely an illusion.

Now there are other times where the bureaucracy makes a point of telling not asking. And that’s what has happened with DEI. The new officials and their salaries, the programs, the promotional materials, the mandated training, the indoctrination about “white fragility” — none of this existed just a handful of years ago. But it’s here now. Settled. There is no appeal. Don’t even think of it. You’re going to class. Resign. Submit.

Young people who have been herded through the public school K-12 system, have this tendency that’s entirely understandable. They think the more emphatic the bureaucracy is, the more right it must be. If you are lacking an appeals process, don’t worry about it because you probably don’t need one. Just worry about appealing the things you can appeal.

Well, I used to be a young person. But I’ve seen some years come and go, and I’ve been impressed by something. It’s the opposite that’s true.

If the bureaucracy doesn’t provide an appeals process, it’s because of one reason, and that one reason is that they’re afraid it will be used. The judgments and edicts handed down without any pathway for questioning or appeal, with very few exceptions, turn out to be ridiculous. The bureaucracy renders the judgment without appeal, because if they allowed for an appeal, ensuing events would show that the appeal is right, and the judgment was wrong. This is why nobody ever brags about having founded a “bureaucracy.” It’s not a good word.

And among the ones we have, nobody anywhere relies on them with genuine faith. They’re just there.

The less a bureaucracy allows for dissent, question or appeal, the less sense the decision makes. That’s because it’s less likely it would remain standing in the end with all credibility left intact, if the discussion were allowed to happen. You don’t need to take my word for it. Just pay attention. Paper straws, yanking Uncle Ben off boxes of rice and disappearing the Indian girl from Land O Lakes. Dudes competing in women’s sports. Pronouns, pronouns and more pronouns. “In establishing whether sexual harassment or aggression has taken place, it is the impression of the complainant that decides everything. The intent of the offender is irrelevant.” Do these decisions make sense? Really?

Let’s put Dr. Fauci in charge of everything, including how we let each other know we care. Make him the national Miss Manners. Let’s wait for Saint Anthony to tell us it’s okay to barbecue in our own back yard…with four people. Masks. Vaccination mandates. Who told you it’s okay to collect rainwater off your own roof?

Fact checkers. “Our ruling is false.” Oh is it now? Is your ruling supposed to be determined by the facts, or are the “facts” going to be molded and shaped by your ruling?

Whether to tag allegations about the 2020 election, and associated shenanigans, “baseless,” or “false.” It looks like, as they say, “a matter of fact.” Yes, it makes perfect sense that we shouldn’t consider public opinion in evaluating those; they are what they are, regardless of what anybody thinks. But when a star chamber of nameless and faceless deciders leaps to the conclusion they want and hands it down to the rest of us, is that really what’s happening?

Because after they do that, a lot of people are going to like it. And then those same people are going to tell us the Supreme Court, or some lower court, screwed up and made the wrong decision. This is where my interest hits a spike, because deciding on matters of fact and where logic leads from those facts, without any deference to public whim, is what those courts are supposed to do.

Meanwhile, there’s supposed to be a lot of distress over how much heat there is around our various issues under discussion — how divided we have become. We’d be a lot less divided if someone stopped and asked the public at large about the paper straws, or if it would be alright for men to pretend to be women in women’s boxing matches and swim matches.

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When They Tell Us How It’s Gonna Be
Thursday, April 4th, 2024