Thomas M. Garrett, Ph.D.

Ancient nations valued themselves upon this: that it took a immense deal of time to turn their great nation into a little one.  The advice that I am about to communicate is the very reverse, by following these few simple rules our Great Nation may now be turned into a small one in record time.

I address myself to all our officials, elected and appointed, who have the management of our nation, which has become troublesome to govern.  Turn your attention to these rules, so that your work may be more easily accomplished.

1. Divide our people

*         Don’t let the silent majority have a voice.  Gerrrymander political districts in such a manner that elections are a foregone conclusion and only those at the political extremes are elected.  Create a new class of permanent elites, politicians whose only trade is getting re-elected.  Above all, do not allow the middle classes to hold elective office.

*         Divide the nation into two parties and make everyone take sides.  Every issue should be divided along party lines.   Consensus issues such as the nation’s economy should be avoided.  Confine the work of elected officials to second guessing, fixing blame, holding hearings and publishing documents which embarrass the other party, and discussing divisive issues where consensus cannot easily be achieved, such as abortion.

*         Destroy the concept of one nation in general and concept of the middle class in particular.  Insofar as possible define every issue as a matter of interest group; gender, race, national origin, and sexual orientation work especially well.  Engage in class warfare among these groups by making everyone a legally protected group.  Eliminate terms like “common good” that might refer to the majority of the people; substitute more subjective and inflammatory terms such as “social justice” or “fairness”.  If the issue unalterably applies to everyone, such as the economy, make it a contest between “haves” and “have nots”.

1. Destroy our economy

*         Take money from the middle class.  Give it to the largest businesses so they can spend it in other countries.

*     Don’t allow mid-size businesses any political voice at all.  They generate far too much improvement in their communities to be tolerated.

*   Destroy family farms and businesses, preferably with a regressive tax scheme upon the death of the farmer or business leader.

*   Promote mercantilism: let America be a source of raw materials and a market for manufactured goods, but move as much manufacturing as possible out of the country.  As American manufacturing has been the source of her economic strength, disincentives to manufacturing will need to be numerous.  Some ideas include multiple layers of onerous occupational safety regulations coupled with expensive workers compensation schemes.  Requiring employers to pay for health care while using regulations to increase its cost would also work.  Finally, the government’s police powers can be used to unionize employees to drive up American costs while encouraging unlimited imports from nations that have lower labor costs and subsidized manufacturing.  Call it something innocuous like “Employee Free Choice” and “Free Trade”.

* Use environmental legislation to stifle growth.  Find obscure species such as insects or rodents and use them to stop development.  Call this process “protection” and the obscure animal a “keystone species”.

III. Increase our economic burden

*         Create more lawyers per capita than any other nation while creating fewer doctors, engineers, and scientists.  Issue visas so that our universities can train the children of other nations, while requiring prospective American doctors to go to medical school in less technically advanced countries.  Force any doctors, engineers, and scientists from the visa program that do receive their degrees to return to their nation of origin.

*         Allow any dispute imaginable to be litigated.  Give large awards to those who claim that a product is defective, those who spill coffee on themselves, and those who hurt themselves in the commission of a crime.   This will ensure a plentiful supply of lawsuits.  Give their lawyers a hefty kickback on the award.  This will ensure a plentiful supply of lawyers.

*         Staff the legislatures with as many lawyers as possible.  This will ensure a plentiful supply of defective legislation.

*         Partially regulate as many large and important institutions as possible.  Health care, banking, savings and loans, mortgages, finance and the like should all be made as inefficient as possible.  By partial regulation, one is assured that no free market mechanisms will accidentally make these institutions efficient while at the same time, allowing charlatans, crooks, and con men easy access to government guarantees.  In the event this causes a global depression, spend large sums of money and create a bailout plan where private interests are protected by federal guarantees.  Then make certain that these guarantees go to the same large, partially regulated private interests that caused the problems in the first place.  This will deepen the economic calamity.  Under no circumstances allow the middle class or any small or mid-sized business access to any of these special deals.

*         Borrow, tax, and spend at a massive level.  Disingenuously use honorable ends to justify the means.  National defense and social programs are especially good causes because strong emotions will allow spending far beyond the nation’s means.

*         Tax heavily enough to destroy the nation’s economic welfare, but not enough to pay for the spending.  In this manner, a heavy debt burden can be passed down and the nation may be crippled for many generations.

*         Government policy must be to punish success while rewarding failure.  This is particularly important in the educational process.  First generation citizens may wish to better themselves and the nation, but by the second or third generation – if the education system is properly set up – this kind of ambition can be eliminated.  As much money as possible should be given to programs required as the result of litigation, administration, and other non-instructional activities; while programs such as mathematics, music, science, and foreign languages should be underfunded, delayed until high school, or preferably eliminated entirely.

*         Take on world wide roles which hold promise for being massively unprofitable.  These should meet two criteria: not only should they cost a lot of money but they should result in a permanent universal hatred for the nation.  Using the American military to save repressive regimes from themselves and their neighbors should be done without help or compensation and preferably result in some kind of permanent occupation or other lasting damage to our business interests.

With apologies to Q.E.D.