Why do Americans need to teach former Communists how to win elections?  They never lost one.

Frankly, I am a bit distrustful of the activities of
Mr. Weyrich, as too many free marketeers descended on
Russia and in their wisdom managed to almost wreck the
economy and give a lot of power to members of the Mafia.
Fortunately for Russia Putin is now putting it back
together again.

I would not brag about my activities in Russia if I were
in Mr. Weyrich position.

“There are now thousands of bureaucrats on the government payroll who produce very little”

I’ve noticed that in the USA federal govt employees have a do-nothing culture, many of them do practically no work.  IMO you are very lucky; here in the UK govt employees mostly work quite hard, much to the detriment of our society.  A class of lazy parasites is far preferable to a class of busy-bees working hard at destroying your society.

What Mr. Weyrich describes is very similar to the original aim of our own public schools.  To provide training for civil servants.  Part of this training was to indoctrinate them into the propandist myths supporting the government.

Questions

1.  If you scratch an American conservative, do you find underneath a libertarian?

2.  Was “the government” before Richelieu staffed by a class, the chivalric class, and after him “the state” was staffed by “professional” bureaucrats?  Don’t the French themselves have an old school that trains bureaucrats?

3. Is it save to say that in Ludovician Absolutism, the king is the operator of the machine-state of bureaucrats; that in Frederician Absolutism the king becomes the chief bureaucrat; and that all the English (1688), American, and French Revolutions did with respect to The State is just fire the chief bureaucrat?

4.  Are a republic’s elected officials themselves only glorified bureaucrats?

5. Is the spoils system better than the civil service?

Adriana: “I would not brag about my activities in Russia if I were
in Mr. Weyrich position.”

I can’t believe that I’m in complete agreement with
Adriana on something.

Russia’s “free market” reforms were a travesty...the
country was sold off to approximately 15 international
finance capitalist...all of the JEWS, not surprising.
Who provided these “entrepreneurs” with the money to
buy up the Soviet assets? Of course, it was the IMF, and the
World Bank!

“Libertarianism"---19th Century Laissez Faire
economics, repackaged for the I-Pod generation---is
absolute and complete nonsense. There is no such thing
as a “free market"---only unregulated markets. And
unregulated markets are no more “freer” then regulated
markets.

Private property is indeed necessary for self-actualization
and perssonal fulfillment...but taking it to the bizarre
extreme of “Laissez Faire” is not only historically
inaccurate, but completely and totally utopian---and
therefore dangerous.

Sid sed: 5. “Is the spoils system better than the
civil service?”

Obviously from the conflict of interest in war
profiteers like Cheney, NO. Cheney made his millions
“privatizing” war, and not surprisingly spends all
his time conspiring to start new ones.

Nothing shows the hypocrisy of “Libertarians” then
their defense of “privatization”. I mean on one hand
they decry the ‘special interests’ of government
bureacrats in the social programs they implement, and
on the other hand, ignore the political consequenses
of “privatization”, which is really just bringing
back patronage politics.

Outside the huge amount of money it will cost, I doubt there would be any real impact on society with a Civil Service Academy. 

The career bureaucrats tend to be a bit smarter about things than the political beneficiaries and ideologues anyway.  For example - look how Gen. Colin Powell managed Gulf War I vs. Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Kerik and Gulf War II.

You are right, Matthew.  Career bureaucrats have two
advantages over political appointees.

1) Their careers do not depend in telling the President
what he wants to hear.  This is something that W lacks
unfortunately.

2) They have been around quite a bit, and have seen
enthusiasms come and enthusiamss go. They are not likely
to get misty-eyed at the idea of convering the Middle
East to democracy by invading Irak.

Also, a professional bureaucracy means professional
standards, and those include rejection of corruption, which
brings more transparency to government.

Each time I hear a denonciation of bureaucracy in
principle, I recall Hayek’s fulminations against
Prussianism, or rather the system that Bismarck created.

And that kind of thinking contributed to World War I,
as Germany was seen as a corrupting influecne against
liberty…

The rest is History.

Or are they, as Newt Gingrich suggested, pygmies?

As I recall, one of the first moves by this “conservative” giant <sarcasm> was when, as Speaker of the House, Gingrich plumped for a tax-payer funded bailout of Wall St. Banks after their ill-advised loans to Mexico.

It took a faux conservative village to raise him to power.

We already have a bureaucrat factory,
it’s called “prison.”

Of course, I have a couple of questions for Mr. Weyrich.  First, why in the hell is an American in the Soviet Union teaching thugs (like Burees Yelltsin) and their cohorts how to win elections?  Is that what democracy is all about, winning elections?  Whatever happened to the idea of principles based on the natural law and the common good?  Then, you lift your skirts and cry foul, because if you were to take a train trip in the same Soviet Union, you might not return to the U.S. to enjoy a SLURPY.  Why is that Mr. Weyrich?  Then you bring up the disgusting topic of Hilary Rodham Clinton, that despicable, unprincipled c__t.  First of all, what man in his right mind is even recognizing that she is qualified to stand for the highest office in the land?  Who pays attention to her?  Wimps, probably.  Does anyone contributing to this site find her the hope for the future of America?  And, yes, Mr. Weyrich, there is a man who will stop the leftists, like that slime Rodham Clinton, and he is Ron Paul.  Assuming you may be a man of principle, then you have only one choice, that is Ron Paul.  Otherwise, all that you have said is blather for a fee on this site.

I’m on holiday and promised myself that I would refrain from commenting here during my holiday.  But…

...but, Mr Weyrich, what you wrote warrants a response from me, because you, Sir, are exactly the kind of American interloper - the kind of effete armchair “analysts” who breezed into Russia for a few days or weeks without ever really LIVING there, and then breezed out again while leaving it in ruins - who were instrumental in ruining everything that I was trying to build up in Russia (especially goodwill between Russia and the West) while I lived there in the 1990s.

Mr Weyrich, I, too, was in Sverdlovsk/Ekaterinburg in the 1990s.  But unlike you, I actually lived there - and I lived like a Russian, among Russians, on a Russian income.

And this line you wrote, just makes me want to rip my hair out by the roots:

“He had learned that I liked trains and had arranged for me to ride trains throughout the Soviet Union. As I quickly imagined being arrested in a remote rural town, I declined.”

Good God.  Mr Weyrich, IF you had gotten lost in a “remote rural town” in Russia in 1990, then the worst thing that would have happened to you would have been being overfed and/or given too much vodka and cognac by your generous Russian hosts, among whom you would have been regarded as a precious celebrity, especially in 1990 when most Russians had a LOT of goodwill toward Americans, which people like you ruined with your “free market” and ersatz “democratic” bullshit.

Ugh - not to mention, that Russian trains are the most well-furnished and safe and enjoyable, agreeable trains in the world, to this day.  And you passed THAT up, because of some effete fear you had of being “arrested in a remote rural town” in Russia?  Good GOD, man!  Oh, the delights and friendships you missed out on!  You should only be so LUCKY, to be stranded (as a White American) in a remote rural Russian town in 1990, where you would have been treated with far more respect than you evidently deserve.

And now, if anyone wonders why the Russians became more hostile to the West during the past ten years or so?  Anyone wondering how and why all of the VAST goodwill and almost adoration the Russians had for America and for the West, has vanished since the 1990s?  Mr Weyrich’s article, here, is just one example among many, of how and why that happened - how and why the Russians, that
extraordinarily intelligent and spiritually gifted and deservedly proud ancient nation - turned within just a few years, from adoring America and Americans, to fearing our intentions and contemning our so-called “democracy”.

What a waste, what a terrible waste of goodwill and of what OUGHT to have become a new alliance between Russia and the West.  Alas, it was all thrown into the gutter by American “free-market/democratic” cheerleaders who looked upon the Russians with scorn, just like Weyrich does in this article.  What a waste - for which I have personally paid dearly in many ways, and my Russian friends have paid for it even more.

One more thing, Mr Weyrich?  ALL, ALL Russian university students get a deferment from military conscription - not just the ones at the one school you mentioned.  And you said this was a “uniquely Soviet way of thinking” - but it’s identical to how America had draft deferments during the Viet Nam war, for anyone who was enrolled at university.  It’s exactly the same thing.

Smert’ (z) vcy’Neoconskii!

And Mr Weyrich, if you ever knew a damned thing about Sverdlovsk/Ekaterinburg, or about the Urals, you would understand what I mean when I say, the Salamander Queen will turn you and your kind to stone.  Please don’t use the people of my beloved Urals as fodder for your articles, unless and until you know and love them personally.

John Ball sed: “Mr Weyrich’s article, here, is just one example among many, of how and why that happened - how and why the Russians, that
extraordinarily intelligent and spiritually gifted and deservedly proud ancient nation - turned within just a few years, from adoring America and Americans, to fearing our intentions and contemning our so-called
democracy.”

Simply enough, Russia was looted by the IMF/WTO, which
Weyrich can’t admit is what Bush2 and the CEO classes
he represents consider American “democracy”. The goal
of forcing this kind of “Democracy” on the Mideast is
the main reason the US is involved in a quaqmire in the
Mideast. Why would people in the Mideast want to surrender
their own economic security and national sovereignty to
this sort of tyranny?

Weyrich degrades his own credibility with what is
evidently a cultural bias against the Slavs, and
Russia especially.

Joe Populist,

I disagree with you on most things, and we still have some unresolved personal issues and so I’ve been wanting to knock your teeth out if you ever meet me in person.  But, you and I agree here, and so, I promise to buy you a pint of GOOD beer… ;-) :-)

Eh, well, I won’t fight you in person.  I prefer to resolve potential fistfights over many beers and songs and stories, etc etc… :-)

@John

I want a beer, too.

I drink vodka. <grin>

So Weyrich had a hand in the looting of Russia… I’ll bet be vacations with Berezovsky too

Weyrich has always gone where there was money to be made…

“There are now thousands of bureaucrats on the government payroll who produce very little.”

And what pray tell does Mr. Weyrich produce? Got your hands out hoping for some of the newly appropriated “democracy promotion” money from the government I suppose. I’m guessing Mr. Weyrich’s sabbatical was on the government dime.

What say you Weyrich?

@ Joe Populist who said:  “I drink vodka. <grin>”

Sto gram (100 ml) vodk’, Iosef Populeestovich!

Joe, I thank you for your magnanimity in sharing a drink with me.  I’ll choose that over a fistfight any time.  But only if you will down 100 grams (around three shots) of vodka in one gulp with me, Russian style. 

And then the Russian custom is for us to link arms while we drink that triple shot, and then say, “BRUDERSCHAFT!” That’s German for “brotherhood”.  I’m not quite sure where that old Russian military toast in German came from, but I think it goes back to the Napoleonic wars when the Russians and Germans were allies.

Meanwhile I notice Mr Weyrich - whose OTHER articles I hold in high regard - has not responded to the reproach I have written here.  Maybe I should offer him some vodka too, to loosen his tongue and reassure him that he’s among friends here…

But this is just a practical matter. Education in public service will help public servants do their job better. People will be better seved and productivity imprve.  The author sees a bureucrat factory turning out ms.Clinton drone by the thousands. This is silly. Mr. Weyrich himself seems rather more brainwashed than American public servants in general.

@danfinn

Indeed, there is some confusion about the laws, and
those who actually implemented them. It is like blaming
the police for the sentences that judges impose.

The one basic rule of bureaucracy is “All laws, good,
bad, or indifferent, must be obeyed to the letter.” You
do not like the laws, go after the legislators who
pass them, not after those who implement them. Give them
good laws and they will implement them cheerfully, give
them bad laws, and they will implement them too.