Ben Shahn: Untitled [Borobudur, Java]
(January 26, 1960-February 2, 1960)

"Woe be to anybody believing they know better than even the simplest system, for they are the most easily fooled."

A panel of three judges, one nominated by our incumbent the last time he pretended to be president, found his Liberation Day tariff scheme unconstitutional and, therefore, illegal, ordering the administration to immediately stop collecting these extortions and to refund any already gathered. This ruling, of course, appealed, guts the incumbent's aggressive and ill-conceived transformation of our economy from the envy of the world to its pity. Our incumbent insists upon employing simple-minded strategies to achieve all of his aims, and such strategies hold little promise when pitted against mature governing systems.

It's not simply that the systems he attacks have been around for ages; they are each extremely complex. As John Gall, author of Systemantics, How Systems Work and Especially How They Fail (Pocket Books, 1975), insists, systems always lie about their purpose. Whatever you think they're doing, they're actually up to something else. As if that weren't enough complication, all systems are comprised of other systems, creating nested complications. Furthermore, each system operates essentially as an infinite set of complications, such that not even the most minor parts are entirely comprehensible.

Our saving grace has been our incumbent's insistence upon breaking rather than following the rules. In our government, laws exist to permit and forbid certain behaviors. Anyone interested in overthrowing our government runs up against systems resistant to ignorance of their rules. Remember, ignorance of the law has never served as an excuse for breaking any law. Laws stand immutable. One breaks them at their own peril, a peril compounded by the infinite nature of the system resistant to scofflaws. It might take some time, justice was deliberately designed to be blind and mounted on the slowest horse, but commupance seems virtually guaranteed, usually at the infringer’s own ignorant hand.

If this incumbent were interested in creating lasting change, he'd enlist the system in making the change. Charging in, ignoring the gatekeepers, only identifies him as an unserious interloper. He's foolish. He will rail and appeal, but his fate was sealed the moment he chose to violate the rules by which such systems change. His was the most naive approach. Furthermore, the authors of the Project 2025 document were none of them government systems scholars. They blythely attempted to ignore the very systems they'd have to convince, which could only encourage a more vigorous defence. The inefficiency experts, kids recruited because they couldn't know better, set about spending more money than their efficiency proposals saved, while ruining innocent people's lives, killing many. They became less than irrelevant. Worse, they probably made themselves indictable.

Be wary of anyone claiming to be the master of any system, especially if that system has been steadily evolving over a couple of hundred years and is entrenched in law. Such entities are never amenable to dabbling ideologues. Sure, any Jehu can throw a wrench into any machine, but making anything productive happen requires more than some random wrench throwing. We elected a man uniquely skilled at throwing wrenches to fulfill a job responsible for faithfully administering the will of Congress. This sounds like pretty much the opposite of what even a mediocre king might do. The system knows what it needs and is well on its way to purging this latest insult to its purpose. Woe be to anybody believing they know better than even the simplest system, for they are foolish.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #CHope , #PureSchmaltz