Karen Kwiatkowski has a superb piece here, arguing inter alia that we should learn that much of what the feds do is needless and that the politicians and apparatchiks despise most of us.
Her concluding paragraph:
Talking and laughing about the uselessness, wastefulness, wrongness, and fatness of government threatens Fedgov. It flutters and shimmies the house of cards that is Washington, its surrounding counties and supporting institutions everywhere. It enrages the king and his courtiers and his sponsors. When we begin to understand that we don’t really need a big fat nanny state, and begin to mentally and spiritually wake up to the mathematical fact that more government means less freedom and prosperity, less joy, less happiness – we accomplish much more than is immediately visible.
I agree. One thing we ought to learn is that the notion that all those politicians and “public servants” are deeply committed to the good of the rest of society is sheer hooey.