“The question,” Bonnie Kristian writes at The Daily Beast, “isn’t whether we want a Republican reckoning or not. It’s whether we want the dream of mass public repentance for bringing Trump to power or the reality of Trump remaining out of power.”

Kristian’s argument, in summary:

Seeking the former “could push wavering Republicans toward a reflexive defense of Trump,” keeping the tank full and the engine running on his attempts to remain relevant.

Letting bygones be bygones, moving on instead of expecting Trump voters to don hair shirts and loudly denounce themselves, on the other hand, might let a (still illiberal) GOP find its way out of the Orange One’s shadow.

Maybe she has a point. On the other hand, she seems to be missing a point as well: American politics is designed to minimize “reckonings” in the form of lasting consequences for massive failures like, say, nominating a Donald Trump for office.

Ballot access laws, debate exclusion measures, and either/or voting (as opposed to, for example, ranked choice) corral voters into a “two-party” system.

Gerrymandering makes some districts safe for one of the two parties; in “swing” districts, party loyalty may make small moves at the margins, but it’s still either/or, not “how about something else?”

Fixed terms (four years for president, six for Senate, two for House), as opposed to snap elections when the president loses a vote of confidence, mean we’re stuck for long periods with the same faces.

Maybe you’d just like to leave? That’s fine, if you’re willing and able to fly to another country, fork over hundreds of dollars to file a statement renouncing your citizenship, pay an “exit tax” on assets you take with you, and continue paying US income taxes for ten years. And your exit won’t change the system, even to the extent that it frees you from that system.

Political “reckonings” have become short-term inconveniences. Americans under 30 years of age or so missed an era when one party (the Democrats) controlled both houses of Congress for nearly 40 years. These days, control of one or both houses changes at least once per decade.

Even after nominating, electing, and re-nominating Trump, the Republican “reckoning” lasted only two years before they regained control of the House. And we can expect that slow teeter-totter to continue indefinitely with neither party taking a hard enough bump to be thrown off.

Could substantial reforms “fix” that problem? Maybe. Ranked choice voting, un-gerrymandered districting and/or proportional representation, and repeal of draconian ballot access laws would at least open the system up to real alternatives.

The bigger question is whether the system is WORTH fixing. The history of political government says no — that we’re better off without it.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“Here’s some free advice for 2023,”  Erin Keller writes at the New York Post: “Delete all your personal information — and sexual content — from your electronic devices before donating them to Goodwill.”

The advice may be free, but it’s worth far more than we’re paying for it.

The “news hook” to Keller’s piece:  A TikToker’s revelations concerning an old router he bought at Goodwill for $15.  This particular router (a discontinued Apple model called a “Time Capsule”) did more than connect its user to the Internet. It also included a hard drive to store computer backups on.

Money quote: “There is audit history, credit card numbers, flight information. I have this man’s bank account number …”

Fortunately, “@dankeunextgay” isn’t  a bad guy. He’s not abusing, sharing, or selling the information. He’s trying to track down the router’s former owner or family to return it.

You might be surprised at how common this kind of thing is. An acquaintance of mine (who’s into retro computing) once bought a stack of 3.5″ floppy disks at a thrift store. When he got home, he discovered that their previous owner had been a hospital, and that they were chock full of, in US legal parlance, “Protected Health Information” on patients. He’s not a bad guy either, so he formatted the disks and filled them with his own stuff instead of prank-calling cancer patients or trying to pick up other people’s  oxycodone prescriptions.

There’s a lot of talk these days about a “right” to privacy. I’m skeptical of that notion (“information wants to be free”), but privacy is certainly a good thing. And it’s our responsibility to protect our own privacy and the privacy of those we’ve made promises to (e.g. a health provider’s promise of patient confidentiality).

So yes, if you’re going to drop your old laptop in a thrift store donation bin (or abandon it at a repair shop — yes, I’m talking to you, Hunter), for the love of Pete wipe your hard drive first.

But there’s more to it than that. Use strong passwords. Lock your phone with a pin, not a swipe or fingerprint scan. Use end-to-end encryption for your emails and texts where it’s available. Set up PGP to encrypt your private documents.

There are bad people and governments (but I repeat myself) out there who won’t hesitate to abuse your personal information for their own benefit.

If you value your privacy, guard it.

Happy New Year.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On December 15,  the US Government Accountability Office released a report on the Internal Revenue Service’s failings in “providing customer service to taxpayers.”

Are taxpayers “customers?” Let’s have a look at that idea.

“For years,” George Ochenski writes at CounterPunch, “we’ve all heard politicians claim they should ‘run government like a business.’ But of course government isn’t a business …. the governor’s ‘duties’ are not to make a profit for himself and his corporate shareholders as he did in business. Rather it is to serve the people of the state and uphold his oath of office to protect and honor our Constitution.”

That’s a riff on the old myth enshrined in the US Declaration of Independence:  “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed …”

In reality, government can be run like a business, and government is run like a business, because government is a business.

But, as with broadcast television, social media platforms, and “free” Internet services, the taxpayer or “average citizen” is government’s product, not its customer.

What kind of business is government? The best metaphor is that of a sprawling ranch, raising various types of livestock, each of which may be put to various uses.

As a taxpayer, you’re a cow to be milked, or a hen whose eggs are gathered, or a sheep who’s periodically sheared.

As a prospective incarcerated “criminal,” you’re a pet whose kenneling is paid for by those cows and hens.

As a prospective conscript, you’re a steer or hog or fryer being fattened up for future slaughter.

And as a prospective parent, you’re “breedstock,” charged with keeping the rancher supplied with new generations of cows, hens, pets, steers, hogs, and fryers.

Those are the roles played by members of society’s productive class — the people who make useful things and provide useful services.

Government is the rancher.

The customer is the political class — those who buy you, and everything you produce that the rancher doesn’t eat himself,  paying the rancher with both material wealth and continued power to run the Lazy G Ranch operation. Government employees. “Defense” and “prison” and other “ranch services” contractors. Ostensibly “private” businesses seeking preferential treatment from the rancher for their own enterprises.

Do you benefit at all? Well, yes, in the same sense that the hogs get slopped, the steers get grain and grazing space, etc. But to the extent that this is a trade proposition, let’s face it: You’re working for chicken feed.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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