Loading ...Re-ELY-ty Check For Beers
January 22nd, 2008While up in Ely (pronounced EE-lee for us flatlanders, like the middle initial and last name of the Civil War general) this weekend, I had several government encounters of the educational kind.
It brought home a fundamental truth that is easy to lose in the bright lights of Las Vegas.
The primary reason I believe government should be held to Constitutional purposes is that government is the most inefficient way of getting things done that we know of, that if you have a task at hand, government will waste more doing it than the private sector will profit.
I offered this opinion on Sunday to school board member Glenn Terry. He didn’t blink an eye before retorting - “Not here in White Pine County.”
That surely set me to thinking - for a couple of days, it turned out.
Glenn was right. Large organizations are inefficient, not necessarily government. It’s just that living in Clark County, the largest organizations are government ones. Most places in America, that’s plain weird. I forget.
Very large private sector organizations hire new CEOs and “reinvent” themselves in order to respond to customer dissatisfaction at their inefficient ways. They do it with varying degrees of success - which is why we don’t shop at Montgomery Wards anymore, although I still run Microsoft Windows (and Office) on my (still) IBM laptop. (Yes, I know, you can’t buy an IBM laptop anymore - more change forced by competition).
Very large government organizations - Clark County probably has the largest concentration of them in America, between our very few and large local governments and the 5th largest school district in America - don’t. Having only token accountability allows customer dissatisfaction to be dismissed.
Interestingly, the environment in White Pine is quite the opposite of Clark County. In White Pine, the private sector is dominated by a large mining company while government is composed of a bunch of concerned citizens who opened up their school on a Sunday (holiday weekend) for a Las Vegas state legislator, their Congressman (Dean Heller) and Governor (Jim Gibbons).
It’s probably the same in most of Nevada’s counties. And that’s the important lesson for Nevada’s state government… one size doesn’t fit all.
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:29 pm
If more is less, perhaps less is better. I don’t know, I was just thinking “for the people, by the people” might just have been a fairly good idea. But, hey, I’m just one vote. What does that matter?
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January 25th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Of course that was the reason we used to have a State Senator from EVERY county elected by the County Commissioners and not the people directly (a Republican form of government) until the United States Supreme Court (High Priests of the Cult of the Black robe) violated the Republican form of government and turned us into a One Man One Vote tyrannical Clark County Democracy.
The Founders understood this but modern-day elected officials do not uphold the Constitution or they would impeach those Black Robes tyrants.
The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes. Federal Edition. Collected and Edited by Paul Leicester Ford.
1821. Jan. 6.
They (the judiciary) are then in fact the corps of sappers & miners, steadily working to undermine the independant rights of the States, & to consolidate all power in the hands of that government in which they have so important a freehold estate. But it is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their distribution, that good government is effected. Were not this great country already divided into states, that division must be made, that each might do for itself what concerns itself directly, and what it can so much better do than a distant authority. Every state again is divided into counties, each to take care of what lies within it’s local bounds; each county again into townships or wards, to manage minuter details; and every ward into farms, to be governed each by it’s individual proprietor. Were we directed from Washington when to sow, & when to reap, we should soon
want bread. It is by this partition of cares, descending in gradation from general to particular, that the mass of human affairs may be best managed for the good and prosperity of all. I repeat that I do not charge the judges with wilful and ill-intentioned error; but honest error must be arrested where it’s toleration leads to public ruin. As, for the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from their bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may indeed injure them in fame or in fortune; but it saves the republic, which is the first and supreme law.
January 26th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Most supervisors and people in mid-management learn early what farmers and ranchers grow up knowing and military leaders apply daily. Take everything in small bites; work the big issues as a group of smaller issues. Attempts to overcome major problems in one wide swoop most often leave haunting residual problems that never allow complete for satisfactory results. CEOs and top level management too often fail to recognize the grass root problems associated with their operations and dictatorially push for immediate and early corrections. Too often this forces subordinate managers and supervisors to submit early solutions resulting in less than practical and unsuitable results. Problems and issues should be handled at the lowest practical level and only considered corrected when those who are most effected and closest to the issue consider them corrected.
January 26th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Ely Nevada and Ely Minnesota are both great small towns
January 26th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Can you imagine how efficient our Government would be if we mandated that all taxes come from gaming? I’ll bet the resulting efficiency would acutally lower the percentage of taxes paid on the gaming community. What a relief that would be.
Also, get ready for National Gaming Taxes. These are just too much for our National Government to stay away from for long, and the rest of the country is not very happy with our tactics regarding Yucca Mountain. In my mind, it is not a matter of whether gaming taxes are going up, but who will get the money.
Large organizations will be as inefficient as the customers let them. It seems that our Government’s customers are not very vigilent.
January 29th, 2008 at 12:10 am
I just wanted to thank you Mr. Hansen for posting those words of Thomas Jefferson. When I can read a blog and learn something from a great patriot like him, I can consider my day to be a good one.
Thank you Mr. Senator for working so hard to keep those ideas posted above, alive and represented.