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Comment by calvinmorrison

2 years ago

perhaps that democracy is not effective when the state organs are unelected bureacrats with guns

Nine times out of ten, the person saying this will turn around and complain about all the "political hacks" running things, referring to political appointees with no experience or background in the area of government they are tasked to run.

The term "unelected bureaucrats" applies to people like...I dunno, the director of the NIH and field office managers. Heck, even a police captain is an "unelected bureaucrat". Sheesh.

  • The director of the NIH is a prime example of a position the people should have direct control over. As is the police captain. Are you claiming otherwise? Have we really forgotten about 2020 so soon?

history has shown that clumsy bureaucrats with slow erosion of rights is still superior to belligerents with guns in a mob

Would you prefer elected bureacrats with guns? That scares me more.

Perhaps we just go with rock solid transparency laws...

  • At least elected bureaucrats are theoretically accountable to the electorate. The gripe comes from things like the unelected bureaucrats at the US Department of Justice deciding that as part of implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act, there are only two limited and inadequate questions you can ask of someone with an apparently bogus service dog or else. That rule didn't come from the people who wrote the law.

    • In practice that shouldn’t matter, as the law states that any service animal can be turned away so long as the business provides accommodation to the human (which is the point of the limited questions).

      The fact this rarely happens is more due to people not actually knowing the law and typically wanting to avoid potential conflict.

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    • Those unelected bureaucrats play by the rules set by elected bureaucrats, though.

      > That rule didn't come from the people who wrote the law.

      But lawmakers can write a law to address that.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. That's been a common charge against our vast unelected bureaucracy, most of whom hold qualified immunity. We're trillions of dollars in debt, maybe it's time to peel some of it back a little.