Governments Should Provide Valuable Services

The purposes of government are to enact justice, protect the peace, and to encourage the prosperity of its citizens.

One critique of government is that it is overbearing, too bureaucratic, too byzantine, and too punitive. If you’re a business owner and your whole operation is in Limbo because some pencil-pusher just doesn’t want to read your paperwork today, or tomorrow, or six months from now, then you’d rightly think the best thing for government to do would be getting out of your way. A government that merely hinders or slows down its citizens rightly deserves such opprobrium, for it is not serving its purpose: to improve lives.

However, the appropriate response to this specific problem is not a general condemnation of all government operations. There are some things that citizens most rightly expect and demand that their governments adequately provide.

I would highly recommend that anyone interested in governance, or those in, or seeking public office read De Regno by St. Thomas Aquinas. Meaning “On Kingship”, Aquinas wrote this letter as a gift to the newly coronated king of Cyprus in 1266. In it he describes the purposes of kings and their office; the three just and three unjust governments; and the qualities of both effective and defective rulers.

One of Aquinas’ benchmarks for the potential effectiveness of a government is how unified it is: a King is one man, and thus is more unified than an Aristocracy, which has a small number of rulers, which is in turn more unified than a Polity (or other such legislative body) with its many multitudes of members. He values the ability of governments to act decisively and with justice, prudence, and right reason. The purpose of government is to promote the welfare of those governed. If this is possible under one just and righteous man, then that is preferable, because justice and prosperity find no hurdles. However, if there are many rulers with equal authority, then they may bicker and differ, and compromises will be made, or nothing will be done at all, thus ensuring injustice continues or a lack of prosperity that could have been.

Aquinas is also incredibly clear that public servants are precisely that: servants to the public. The government is obligated to provide for the common welfare of the governed, and to not hinder them in the exercise of virtue, life, or livelihood. Those who enter public life and are a detriment to the public or serve merely to their own benefit are of the unjust governments he describes: Tyrant, Oligarch, or Mob. Thus, good governments must be decisive, quick to action, efficacious, beneficial to the public good, and must provide real valuable services.

I say all this just to point out the incredible failings of certain state and federal agencies.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration posted on social media the following: “When you are walking, remember to stay alert! Don’t get distracted by electronic devices that take your eyes and ears off the road! Remember, safety is a shared responsibility.” (Emphasis added).

I find this to be incredibly tone-deaf and disgraceful. The problem with this type of “share the road!” and “safety is a shared responsibility!” style rhetoric is that it makes each party equal in the equation. There can be no assumptions that an individual walking on a sidewalk is remotely in the same position of power or safety as one driving 45 miles an hour in an SUV or lifted truck. It is simply ridiculous to say both parties involved are equally responsible for their safety. The vehicle will kill the pedestrian because it protects the driver. If a simple four-door sedan is capable of crashing through reinforced concrete and brick buildings, then it will always cause far more damage to an unprotected pedestrian than to the occupant driving.

In an unfortunately similar vein, the Texas Department of Transportation posted the following to social media as well: “November 7, 2000 was the last deathless day on Texas roadways. That means for 23 years straight, at least one person has died every single day. Today, TxDOT asks all Texans to join the effort to #EndTheStreakTX of daily deaths.”

This is not a PR campaign; this is a confession of guilt. TxDOT is the body responsible for the safety of Texan roads, and yet they are the ones begging people to stop dying. If a restaurant served poisoned food, they would have no right to beg their patrons to stop getting sick. Why do we tolerate such failures in our public lives? Obviously either the people involved or the form of the agency itself is the issue, and they are either incapable or unwilling to bring about the change they so dearly claim to seek. We ought to demand excellence from our governments.

These agencies exist for good and legitimate purposes, yet they fail us time and time again. Their jobs are to improve the lives of the citizens for whom they work, not be the dispassionate agents of their financial ruin, injury, and death. Deaths and injuries on US roads have been increasing ever since the 2020 lockdowns.

There is a vast array of documented and tested ways in which these agencies can protect the people they serve: lane narrowing, raised continuous sidewalks, bump-outs, chicanes, bollards, street trees, separated and physically protected bike lanes and sidewalks, etc. Yet they continually build the exact same roads and streets and highways that are bound to cause discomfort, traffic congestion, personal and public financial strain, injury, and death. This is behavior that is detrimental to the safety, life, and livelihood of the people.

Agencies like this fail all of Aquinas’ tests: they are manned by too many people who cannot come to a single idea that is quick, effective, or beneficial to the people they serve. We must demand excellence from our government, it is better for us all if they are good. Take note who your town, city, county, state, federal employees, and politicians are. What they do matters, their work is not a mere abstraction to be ignored or brushed aside. If you have an elected official running for an office you don’t particularly know much about then it is your civic duty to become educated and informed about the office, and the candidates’ positions. If they are appointed, then it is your civic duty to know who appoints them, and what both parties think about the appointed office.

The purpose of government is the prosperity of the governed. We must ensure our governments stay focused on that singular goal.