The Arrogance of Officialdom

Published on:

September 23, 2024

Chairman's Monday Message

“The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled…” — Roman Statesman Marcus Tulius Cicero

Last week the Dallas County Republican Party Executive Committee unanimously passed a resolution supporting the Dallas HERO initiative. You can view the resolution here. Governments are to be structured based upon Constitutions at the federal and state levels. But at the local and municipal level, they have charters. Every so often, these charters come up for review and potential amendment, and such is a time for the City of Dallas Charter. The Dallas HERO initiative is a citizen-led organization that has worked hard to secure the requisite signatures for three amendments to be voted up for the Dallas City Charter. These amendments focus on the safety, security, and accountability of elected officials.

Basically, these amendments address the quote from Cicero from so many years ago. The arrogance of officialdom must be tempered and controlled. What is quite disconcerting has been the reaction of the Dallas City Council toward those seeking accountability to the citizenry and to abide by the charter of the City of Dallas, or face consequences.

But this is not just an issue in the City of Dallas, it is an issue, a bipartisan one, that is a cancer at each level of government.

How interesting that the federal government goes into an apoplectic meltdown over a government shutdown. Yet is it the government who unilaterally made decisions on who was “essential” in the private sector. Consider the hypocrisy: citizens — whose tax revenue enable the existence of government — have no say so on the essential duties and functions of government. Yet during COVID, the government could tell businesses that they had to close and offer them a pittance, their own taxpayer funds as a solution.

It is the government who tells people in Texas that their property, their homes, are not their own. Regardless of someone doing all the right things, and paying off their land and home, they still must pay their rent to the government by way of property taxes. It was French economist, Frederic Bastiat who in his essay, “The Law,” expressed that the government exists to protect the life, liberty, and property of the citizens. He characterized the wealth redistribution schemes of the government as “legal plunder.” That is what the arrogance of officialdom is all about, creating rules, regulations, and restrictions upon thee . . . but not for me.

As Chairman of the Dallas County Republican Party I believe it is time that elected officials at every level of government be held accountable to the electorate. They must no longer believe that they can flaunt their arrogance in our face. This cancer has to be confronted or else our liberties and freedoms will be eroded. Think about the Dallas City Council response that it cannot afford to hire more police officers and secure their pensions . . . yet seeks to give themselves a pay raise. If that is not the height of arrogance, then what is?

Or even elected officials who ask for your electoral support and then power share with the very political opposition you helped them to defeat.

Elected officials are public servants, and this is a representative democracy, not a pure democracy, this means that those elected serve the citizens and speak their voice. We can ill afford to descend into a political oligarchy, but we are on that road to perdition.

Steadfast and Loyal.