[Schlock Mercenary](http://www.schlockmercenary.com/) today has a [strip](http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20050322.html) up where the captain says, “Government is useless for anything outside of warfare, and is only *barely* competent at that.”
Amen, brother.
But… that *is* sort of the point. Lord knows we don’t want an *efficient* government. It’s the nature of humans to acquire power. Government is the mechanism by which we make everything deliberately inefficient, so that, whatever else it screws up, it also screws up in the manufactury of Really Powerful People.
Nazi Germany – now *there’s* an effective government.
Of course, this is all in the shadow of congress passing a law to save Terri Shiavo’s life in a single day–during a recess. Amazing. But then, this is also an example of ineffective government. In a totalitarian regime, she’d be dead by now.
neumatikos 
Of course you know, that if we hadn’t had the technology to keep feeding her, she’d be dead anyway.
Hopefully if congress does pass a law to keep her alive, they’ll also transfer the medical bills to someone else’s name.
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