The Cuteless Perplex

Dear Dr. Bones,

I don't think they (MA political candidates) should have to comply by (_sic_) any stinking rules It should be like having sex or buying drugs or something. Just mind your own business already. Also – what’s is ActBlue’s connection to the Democratic party? Does it refuse to help Republicans? Independents? Does it help all Democratic candidates or only progressive ones or what? And why doesn’t the government simply own the whole fundraising system, make all donations go through a public version of ActBlue, for all candidates, if it’s so important for the public that it be done right? Who is ActBlue and how do we know they aren’t laundering and sanitizing and making stuff up? dont-get-cute @ Tue 13 Sep 1:40 AM

As you see, sir, Dr. Cuteless writes as if she notices no differences between ‘sex’ an' "buying drugs or something."

Something must speak for itself, but as to the other two, it matters a little, I think, that there are laws on the books against pharmacological entrepreneurship.

Unenforced rules are not the same thing as not havin’ rules. The policy implications are different as well.

Obviously [1] Dr. Cuteless adores unenforced statutes, and this is -- perhaps -- a defensible position for a stout paladin of the Secret Sector to assume, but one that needs to be glossed rather carefully to insure full compliance with the AEIdeology. Most selfservatives do not bother with this particular emanation from the Party Pænumbra, simply or simplistically preferrin’ that there be no regulation by The Wicked State at all, rather that there be lots of regs that are never -- well, HARDLY ever -- insisted on.

As regards campaign finance in particular, the orthodoxy of selfservatism is almost monolithic: any attempt to control, or even disclose, what is goin' on behind closed board-room doors campaignwise is anathema. Plus furthermore ¡it is a declaration of war against Freedumb of Speech!

To defend the Cuteless heresy is at once easy and nearly imposible. Easy, insofar as large masses of (usually) ignored rules ensure that the Unitalitarian Executive has lots of discretion, nearly as much as the BigManagers of a secret-sector business corporation have. The impossibility is to get Party neocomrades not to notice that "public administration" (as it used to be called) is not in fact a Secret-Sector phenomenon. About the last thing most Party neocomrades want to see is discretion in the hands of some St. Elizabeth of Warren --- "In the paws of Wesley Mouche", as it were. So to speak.

For Cutelessism to possess any appeal, one must, I think, fancy oneself wielding the discretion rather than being subject to it. The main stream of kiddie selfservatives probably came as close as they ever will to agreein’ with Dr. Cuteless back in good Vicerpotus Cheney's golden days. Even then, however, discretionary enforcement must have seemed far less kiddie-threatin’ in questions of foreign and aggression policy than closer to home. _Vis-à-vis_ the Lesser Breeds Without, Walter Mitty can dream Cheyneyoid or Cutelessite dreams securely. Unless his papers are in a *really* serious condition of disorder, nobooby is gonna take good ol’ Walt for a criminalien or an Islamophalangitarian. [2]

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The ActBlue stuff is news to me, so let it wait till I have compiled a dossier on it.

Happy days.
--JHM


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[1] She might, I suppose, be spoofin’ the Blue Blazers a little.

If so, she is good at it; her e-face looks perfectly straight to me.

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[2] Her freeladyship might find a wedge-entry point for Cutelessism over at Logan. The jet-set kiddies really do seem to hate bein' treated like probable Muzzies, when any fool can see at a glance that they are only Walter Mitty. Or Grandma Moses, as the case may be.

To pick up essentially the same _shtyk_ by the other end, airport security could "go cuteless," leavin’ all the fancy terror-detectin’ gizmos where they are, but savin’ scads an’ scads of money in the present Age of Austerity by not pluggin’ ’em in or payin’ Union thugs to stand beside ’em.

I write merrily, but recall, Dr. Bones, that there are a respectable number of Party neocomrades who claim that The Jewish State (Pat. Pend.) handles all matters of global tourrorism an’ Native Management far better than we Homeland™ers do. And the reason why TJS is supposed to outdo USA in this department boils down, as far as I can make out, to discretionary enforcement. Or call it ‘Cutelessism’.