Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

  • Author: Daniel Ernst

Of wing dams, tyrannous bureaucrats, and the rule of law

But just when I was ready to conclude that the Tea Party movement had run its course, another candidate, who identified himself as a lawyer and an expert in constitutional history, used his time to develop the claim that bureaucracy was unAmerican and that as it grew so did liberty diminish. I may have seen fewer approving nods than followed the other candidate’s tale of the wing dam, but most in the audience appeared to agree with him. Several historians have already engaged the popular antistatism I encountered that evening.

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