By ANDREW DELOREY
Los Alamos

In response to Gary Stradling, posted March 4, 2025 (link), quoting notable historical figures can get complicated. Abraham Lincoln would not easily fit into what most people think as conservatism today.

Here is another of his quotes, “The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves—in their separate, and individual capacities.” It is my contention that we are all not as individual and independent as Stradling suggests.

People in Los Alamos tend to be well educated, but we are experts in a relatively narrow field, and can only be well informed in a few others if we are well read or experienced. However, we depend on others to provide virtually all of what we need to survive and thrive. How can we trust financial institutions with our money, or that our food and water are safe? How do we know our children are safe when they are not with us? How do we know our medical providers are properly trained and the drugs they provide are safe and effective? When we get on an airplane, how do we know that it won’t fall out of the sky? These are just a few examples of many.

An excessively individualistic society requires individuals to be experts in everything and have the personal resources to ensure that all goods and services that we acquire from others meet our standards. It also requires everyone to completely control their environment for health and safety whether they are at home or in public, a notion that is impossible. The federal bureaucracy exists for oversight and expertise. The oversight function ensures that everyone follows the same set of rules and that they are generally fair to everyone. The expertise function ensures that we have the information we need to be healthy and prosperous. Right now, both of these functions are being dismantled.

People like Elon Musk and Donald Trump don’t need or want the federal bureaucracy because they are wealthy enough to pay for expertise for themselves, and they don’t want the oversight because it limits their power. Make no mistake, despite its human fallibility, the federal bureaucracy is a great good for the rest of us. Dismantling it is a further slide towards oligarchy and does not increase our freedom.