Quote of the Day - Don't just do something, stand there! edition

This is pretty hard to argue with:

The primary activity of government is to trade for favors with favored insiders to protect against outsiders. Monarchs do it, Republics do it, everyone does it. Only cases we don't see it are cases of benign neglect like Hong Kong, where locals were not allowed to make said deals, and Britain also made no such deals, because they were ignoring the colony. It's worth noting that the clear greatest economic success stories of the past 100 years were both ex-British colonies that were largely ignored politically...effectively rulerless systems ignored from afar.

Of course, this means that the Elite would have to give up regressive policies that transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to fund cool SWPL stuff like High Speed Rail.  Can't have that.  Excelsior, Progressives!  Rents 'R' us!