25A008 The Fear of DOGE by Jim Davies, 2/25/2025

One of the very refreshing aspects of the new guy in the White House is the Department Of Government Efficiency. Elon Musk has been given the job of directing it, and he's been at work earnestly, seeking out waste in the FedGov. There is a vast amount ready and waiting for him to find.

It has put tens of thousands of Federal employees in fear of losing their comfy but useless jobs, and that could not happen to more deserving people.

One of the most spectacular discoveries made in DOGE's first month was that there a lot more "active" Social Security numbers out there than there are people in the US of A; some 403 million by my count of Mr Musk's X post, versus 333 million actual, real residents including babes in arms, who are, unhappily, usually tattood (as it were) with an SS# before they have the least idea what it is, let alone being able to decide whether it's a good idea.

That 70-million difference includes some who are over 200 years old. Amazing.

I can see how some of these... mistakes could have arisen. Someone applies for an SS# and writes his birth year as 1976, but in a script in which the transcription clerk reads the "9" as a "7". It can happen, especially if the clerk's mind is on something else altogether. So this applicant is solemnly recorded as having been born in 1776, just like America.

Alternatively there's a huge racket in operation, which has up to 70 million people receiving SS benefits to which they have no "entitlement" whatever. The split between the two possibilities? - I've no idea. Your tax dollars, at work.

Elon Musk was honored last month at a CPAC meeting; to help his work in DOGE he was presented with a chain saw by none other than the anarchist President (forgive the oxymoron) of Argentina, Javier Milei - who made such a saw the trade mark of his campaign for that job. So now we have an anarchist and a Lib-Con (at least) on the same platform as Conservatives, being cheered to the rafters by a delighted Conservative audience. I had no idea Joe Biden was so influential a peacemaker.

Of course I hope the alliance continues long, and that Mr Musk will enjoy spectacular success; but I do have one problem with that closing "E" in the title of DOGE. It stands for "Efficiency." That might well mean that the FedGov under Trump will continue to perform all of its present, unacceptable functions but become more efficient; that is, perform them at lower cost. That would be a "first" for any government body, and certainly welcome.

But it's not nearly enough. I want the "E" to stand for "Elimination."

Government in its essential nature is repuslive to humanity. We each have the absolute right to control our selves and our lives, yet that gang of thugs over-rides that natural right with its laws and law-enforcers. That is why it must be eliminated altogether. And any form of politics will not do that job. It can't.

What, then, of Javier Milei? - he cannot, either. He will make a dent in the monster, and increase liberty in Argentina by a useful degree, and I wish him the very best of luck; but that's all.

The right solution, then? - that everyone become so disgusted with the nature of government that they decline ever to work for it. And to reach that conviction, there's no alternative to some serious study. That's what TOLFA is for, and as an appetizer, why not try the QuitGov site. That was valid long before Musk arrived.