The Federal Government is So Numb and Bloated, It Doesn't Even Know When It Gets Raped
Nellie Bowles nails it this morning when discussing ethnic groups' tendency to defraud the government:
In general, I appreciate all the grassroots efforts to eradicate public services fraud. I went all in on DOGE, guys. I was defending Big Balls till the shrinkage. We need a national anti-fraud movement. But now it’s become this weird game of whack-a-mole minority group finger-pointing—the Somalis! The Hasidics! The Armenians! I’m gonna make a wild bet that every minority and majority group in America is defrauding our big dumb government, since our big dumb government makes it ridiculously easy to be defrauded, and small ethnic groups are really good at coordinating with each other.
How are we going to eliminate fraud in big government programs? Simple: Eliminate big government programs.
It's like Frank Chodorov said when attacking McCarthyism in the 1950s. When someone asked him, "What are we going to do about Communists in high government offices?" he replied, "Eliminate the high government offices."
Railing against fraud is like railing against Original Sin. This side of the looming heaven promised by AI, we're always going to have fraud. And theft. And all the other leprotic social symptoms. We can't stop it.
But we can take away the target. Well, at least in theory. I mean, it's not like it's impossible within the schema of the Judeo-Christian tradition. As a practical matter, when you have a government that has grown so large that it doesn't even notice when it's getting raped, its elimination is just that: theoretical. But practical? Probably not. Just ask Big Balls.
As for the ethnic groups who defraud the government? Perhaps they're doing us a favor. For every dollar they steal, there's one less dollar it can use to afflict us with another initiative. Of course, it doesn't work that way. For every dollar the ethnic groups steal, the government sells another dollar of Treasury Securities to finance it (i.e., for every dollar they steal, the government steals another dollar . . . the act of borrowing with no real intent of repaying it is theft).
Nellie Bowles