Rad Geek People's Daily

Today is coronation day. I may have more to say about that shortly, but in the meantime, here’s an idea I got from Fred at Stone Court. Instead of indulging in stupid symbolic actions that no-one will see or stupid direct actions that no-one will be affected by, or blacking your web page out for the day (which, quite honestly, strikes me as taking the imperial pomp on its own terms way too seriously), why not at least do something that involves a bit of thinking and might provoke a bit of argument? In this case, the idea is to construct a “Fantasy Administration” that you’d like to see in place of the jerks who are being installed or re-installed over the next several days. You can take a glance at Fred’s; I sympathize with a lot of his choices (Howard Dean for President might be an ultimately limited platform, but it’s one I’d gladly take instead of the current mess). But my list is going to turn out a bit different, I guess:

• President: Nobody

• Vice President: Nobody

• Secretary of State: Nobody

• Secretary of the Treasury: Nobody

• Secretary of Defense: Nobody

• Attorney General: Nobody

• Secretary of the Interior: Nobody

• Secretary of H.U.D.: Nobody

• Secretary of Education: Nobody

• Secretary of H.H.S.: Nobody

• Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Nobody

• Department of Homeland Security: Dear God, nobody, please.

• Chief of Staff: Nobody

• Drug Czar: Nobody

You might worry, “Hey, the Constitution and the U.S. Code say we have to fill these offices with somebody, so why shouldn’t we put better people in place?” But I don’t recognize the legal authority of the Constitution or the laws passed under it, and neither should you. You might also object, “Look, you have to deal with political realities here, and even if everyone in your administration resigned on the first day, that’d just make Dennis Hastert President, and he’d appoint a bunch of people worse.” I’m sympathetic to that worry; I’m not a voluntaryist, and I don’t object to voting or office-holding as a defensive tactic against State oppression. On the other hand, worrying about the practical realities of implementing a fantasy cabinet seems a bit strained. If you really insist, then I’d say: any reliable libertarian will do, as long as she will enter on the understanding that her job is to step into office, repeal one or two things, pardon any nonviolent prisoners she can, appoint more reliable libertarians down the chain of succession, and as soon as her successor is confirmed, tender her resignation. With luck, this should mean an average term of somewhere between a couple weeks and a couple months per office-holder. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It just goes to show, once again: everything’s easier when you’re an anarchist.

P.S.: I want to thank Fred for calling his post Great Idea. In the same spirit, this post is passing along an idea; it is not the replication of a meme. There are no such things as memes. I will keep pointing this out until it becomes the anti-meme and puts this pseudoscientific mummery out of its misery. Just in case you were wondering.