The most fascinating thing about working for the government for the last 6 or 7 years has been learning how government really works. Almost no one has any idea how government actually functions.

We spend inordinate amounts of time and money determining who will occupy short-term elected positions in government. Once there, people make a living thinking about what these politicians should be doing. On the other hand, we spend almost no time thinking about who will permanently occupy the bureaucratic positions that are actually responsible for implementing governance.

The vast majority of the employees of the government, like me, are unelected and – for all intents and purposes – cannot be fired. Focusing on the 0.0001% of government employees that get elected (obviously!) misses the remaining 99.9999%. Virtually everyone thinks that its possible to "change" government while maintaining 99.9999% of its employees. This belief is obviously retarded.

I should also note that people are not used to thinking about working environments in which employees cannot be fired. This situation changes the employment dynamic in many ways. Outside of the government, a "boss" is in charge. However, once the power to fire employees is removed, how is it possible for a boss to really be in charge? In a sense, this creates a situation in which the employees are – in reality – in charge.

When we are taught how laws are made, we’re told something like: someone writes a bill, both houses of Congress vote on the bill, if it passes it’s signed by the President and then it’s law at which point it might be interpreted by the courts.

This is correct as far as it goes. However, have you ever asked yourself who that "someone" is who’s writing the bills? Seems like a powerful position, no? That someone is generally unelected and cannot be fired.

The common story also doesn’t go far enough. Regulations are now, by any serious metric, more important than laws. Regulations are written and implemented by agencies, often with little or no judicial oversight. Modern laws aren’t even really laws anymore, they’re just lists of regulations that Congress hopes agencies will implement.

In ancient Rome, the Senate governed until Julius Caesar took power. However, emperors kept the Senate around for a few hundred more years (at least until Diocletian). Are you so sure that the system of government that you believe in hasn’t already been overthrown? Are you like a Roman in the 200s AD who believes in the power of the Senate to appoint an emperor?

THE TRUMPETER TAKEN PRISONER.

A Trumpeter, being taken prisoner in battle, begged hard for quarter, declaring his innocence, and protesting that he neither had killed nor could kill any man, bearing no arms but his trumpet, which he was obliged to sound at the word of command.

For that reason, replied his enemies, we are determined not to spare you; for though you yourself never fight, yet with that wicked instrument of yours, you blow up animosity among other people, and so become the cause of much bloodshed.

APPLICATION.

The fomenter of mischief is at least as culpable as he who puts it in execution. A man may be guilty of murder who never has handled a sword or pulled a trigger or lifted up his arm with any mischievous weapon. There is a little incendiary called the tongue, which is more venomous than a poisoned arrow, and more killing than a two-edged sword.

The moral of the Fable therefore is this, that if in any civil insurrection the persons taken in arms against the government, deserve to die, much more do they whose devilish tongues or pens gave birth to the sedition and excited the tumult.

The Fable is also equally applicable to those evil counsellors, who excite corrupt or wicked governments to sap and undermine, and then to overturn the just laws and liberties of a whole people…

I work at a small new media publication that serves Chicagoland.

Newspapers are like Amy Winehouse a week ago. They may be alive right now, but there’s no doubt how their story turns out.

They will always exist in one form or another- owning one will be a hubris thing for local big shots (kinda like owning a sports team)- but their days of being of ‘premier relevance’ are over.

Going forward, “New Media” will consist of the following three entities.

1) Credible, independent commentary (just like this blog)

2) Established “masterbrands” serving video content (i.e.- the networks)

3) Amateur content and commentary.

In the year 2011 and beyond, there is just no room left for grinding trees into dried, bleached pulp, dousing them with ink and hoping people care enough to pay for it.

The newspaper’s glory days as the ‘immutable ideological bastion of liberal thought and idea’ died as soon as US internet saturation broke 50% and opened up the free exchange of information to everyone, rather than being filtered by a closed-circuit cabal of old media clerics.

Don’t confuse yourselves, my uniformed friends. Just because they aren’t ‘gone’ yet doesn’t mean they aren’t wholly and entirely dead.

Do not fret when you see some BS story published by old media. Their ‘reach’ figures are padded and dishonest, meant to keep their kooky old shareholders believing… They’re a tree falling in the woods.