Last night my commute increased from the usual 1 hour to 5 1/2 hours. I consider myself lucky, as lots of people didn't make it home.

This unfortunate incident was caused by the freak occurrence of two events: a correctly forecast winter storm that dropped 2 inches of snow and a game between the Seahawks and the Packers.

Nowhere to be found was any evidence of government in the form of plows, sand trucks, signs or traffic control.

Thanks to the web, I didn't have to just wonder what, exactly, the state government was doing with my money. They have a web site. It was easy to find, easy to navigate, snappy, consistent and visually clean.

There I learned that Christine Greoire was busy making sure that students who couldn't pass the math part of the standardized state test would graduate anyway. The teachers union was supportive.

I learned of a program to encourage children to describe, in poetry and prose, how much better they are now that they are being raised by someone other than their parents. This program is a collaborative effort by Washington State Relatives as Parents Program (RAPP), several Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) administrations, Casey Family Programs and the Twin County Credit Union.

I discovered a web page of the state's most wanted men and 1 woman, including photos and details of how much they are in arrears on child support (http://www.mostwanted.dshs.wa.gov).

I learned of a disturbing new social issue, marital rape. Apparently, because of personal and societal barriers to reporting marital rape, its prevalence is probably higher than we are aware.

I discovered that the state issues many licenses, including Animal Massage, Kick Boxers and Taxidermy (http://www.dol.wa.gov/listoflicenses.html).

I found a helpful list of signs of people who suffer from self neglect and a handy way to report them to Adult Protective Services

Sex offenders have a an impressive array of programs devoted to them.

The Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) Program helps refugees by providing cash and medical assistance. In 14 languages.

There was a handy Q&A that explained the differences between garnishing the wages of deadbeat fathers who are or are not employed by a Tribal enterprise or an Indian-owned business located on a reservation or trust land.

Apparently the Washington Education Association, the State Affiliate of the National Education Association, is boycotting Wal-Mart.

One of strangest programs was the Omlstead Plan. I never really figured out what this was, but it consists of a committee including Aging and Disability Services Administration, Aging and Adult Services and Developmental Disabilities Division of Access and Equal Opportunity, Children's Administration Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse, Economic Services Administration Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, Medical Assistance Office of Indian Policy, Support Services Mental Health Division, Budget and the Finance Office of Research and Data Analysis. This group consults with the Disability Initiative Advisory Committee, Department of Transportation Agency Council on Coordinated Transportation Community and the Trade and Economic Development Department of Veterans Affairs.

Their stated agenda was:

• Seeking and responding to input from stakeholders
• Expediting and coordinating existing processes and programs
• Proposing modifications or new processes, programs, or tools to expedite the appropriate placement of institutionalized persons in the community
•  Proposing tools and methods to better evaluate placement options 
•  Coordinating across agency lines to improve access to services and supports necessary for designated individuals to live successfully in the community

I didn't make that up.

Mike.

A colleague at work, after having read my blog,  dropped into my office and expressed surprise that I was “a conservative”. He just assumed, me “being from Canada and all”…

There are two reactions that folks in progressive western Washington commonly express upon discovering that one is, indeed, “a conservative”. The first is a slightly guilty relief that there are others, “like me”, out there. The more common is confusion, as people try to reconcile the standard model of a conservative as a dull, intolerant, selfish, violent, retrograde knuckle dragger with what they (hopefully) know you to be. More confusion is better. The result of such a dialog out is often a mutual ratcheting up of understanding and respect, although the occasional excommunication or group intervention also occurs.

It interesting that in Canada, the model of practical progressive implementation, the probability of exile is much higher. But the real taboo in Canada is breaking the rules of civility. The federal Liberals in Canada have done an amazing job of weaving together a culture of cooperation , civility and compassion with patriotism and socialism in an almost invisible way. I suspect the consensus thought there is more fragile. The governments actions around “hate speech” and control of the broadcast content seem to indicate that open mindedness remains universally dangerous to any orthodoxy.

There are fundamentally two sources of this confusion. First is the assumption that conservatives are drones of either a Christian church and/or the Republican central planners. This is silly and doesn’t deserve additional comment beyond my observation that even the Christian conservatives I know are not drones, nor are they close minded or intolerant.

The second is confusion between means and ends. It’s too commonly believed that liberals are motivated by selfless compassion and conservatives by selfish individualism. The reality is there’s a diversity of values and motivations across the board. The only central disagreement is how to achieve results effectively and fairly.  And the core issue is around the nature of organizations.

Conservatives believe that organizations progress through predicable phases, and at different phases can exhibit behavior that is in sync or wildly out of sync with their charter at creation and even the values of their members. They also believe that organizations exhibit the same drive as living individuals and groups to survive and prosper. They tend to resist change and require significant external stimulus to change direction. And finally, organizations grow old and tired and become less efficient.

I’ve observed no correlation between altruism and evil and the public or private sector. The only real difference between these organizations is the mechanism of charter assignment, resource allocation and response to change. The private sector has the asset that people make very granular and frequent buying decisions that serve as validation that a charter is “correct” from the perspective of filling a need or want. The profit/loss and competition mechanisms ensure that needs and wants are supplied as economically as possible. The potential for significant personal financial upside provides the needed motivation for the  risk taking and experimentation that fuels innovation. And finally, bankruptcy serves as a mechanism to end or substantially alter an organization that is so far out of sync with reality and really would be better off gone.

Individuals provide input on public sector charter once every few years. The degree of feedback is not granular. Conceptually the mechanism is not unlike hiring a personal consultant and surrendering control over half of your family savings, income and and purchases for a contract period of say, 2 years. Additionally, there is no real equivalent of bankruptcy in the public sector, except in the disastrous case of bankrupting the entire country. These forces, over time, tend to produce an ever growing bureaucracy whose charter devolves into self preservation.

The forces at work here are powerful and tend to overshadow  “intentions”, good or bad. National health care in Canada has made this point for me a personal level. While I believe deeply that any compassionate and rich nation ought to aspire to and be able to afford to offer health care to everyone, I now realize that an unintended consequence of a purely public sector approach may be universally unavailable poor care. And this is not a result of lazy or uncaring doctors, nurses, administrators or bureaucrats. The system simply can’t respond to change and allocate resources according to the market’s wants and needs in a timely manner. The irony is that a system designed to provide universal access is now providing universal rationing.

The only really effective tools that are available to prevent the creeping growth of governments are a commitment to individual liberty, and limiting funding via tax rates.

 Mike.