Comment on The Blemont Club "Up, up and play the game"

The argument that Armies have to attack once mobilized is as foolish as the belief of the lunatic in The Front Page that he had to kill the policeman because of "production for use." There are layers of people in the Foreign Service, most of whom are intelligent educated skilled and genuinely fond of America, despite their left wing elitism. Many of them are experts on problems that became of secondary interest before they entered government service. If we put them all in a building to work on "Global Warming" but with strict orders to cause no harm to any American business or stockholder, then it would be money well spent to keep them busy until they retired.

At one time IBM had divisions full of engineers who had created the great systems of the 1950s and '60s but who were effectively on the shelf. The problem for the State Department is that they can't afford a staff warehouse. To many of the senior people have the wrong expertise and there is no place to park them while to many of the junior people are the semi-educated products of America's debased universities.

Ronald Reagan did succeed in disestablishing the National Tea Tasting Board. Other than that everything a government starts becomes immortal. Someplace there is probably a clerk compiling reports on trireme traffic for the long gone Byzantine Emperor.