Stay Away From ‘Czar’ Title
It seems fashionable these days for the federal government to appoint ‘czars’ of various kinds - drugs, war, whatever. BikePortland mentions a so-called ‘river czar‘.
There is no more effective way for us citizens to relinquish control over public resources than to cede them to a ‘czar’ - a ruler, emperor, dictator, etc. As citizens, we get rights, but we also have duties and responsibilities - as JHK is fond of pointing out - so we should not be complicit in this shift to authoritarian titling.
I know someone will want to talk about a ‘bike czar’ or some other nonsense, and I figure that’s about the most direct way to absolve ourselves of our own duties and responsibilities, while giving too much power to a single person.
Someone will retort, “You don’t actually think that people will believe a czar is going to ‘rule us’ or something do you?”
Words have meaning. The democracy deficit in America is so strong that we don’t even object to titles like ‘czar’ any more — we have to start paying attention to this stuff, and challenge long-held conventions of all kinds, like the supremacy of the car. The process is as important as the end result, and a good process is the best way to get a good end result.
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