"Something basic is missing in our culture. Americans know it. Nothing much works as it should. Simple daily choices seem impossible, or fraught with peril. In the workplace, we walk on eggshells. Big projects get stalled in years of review. Endemic social problems such as homelessness become, well, more endemic.
Everyday Freedom offers a radical reinterpretation of the corrosion of American culture. The assault on authority after the 1960s, aimed at enhancing freedom, instead created a plague of powerlessness. The teacher in the classroom, the principal in a school, the nurse in the hospital, the official in Washington, the parent on a field trip . . . all have their hands tied. Things don't work, and Americans have lost the freedom to be themselves.
Everyday Freedom offers a radical vision for change: Re-empower Americans in their everyday choices. The massive legal structures erected since the 1960s were based on flawed notions that human judgment could be replaced by elaborate dictates. These failed structures must be replaced with simpler frameworks activated by human responsibility and accountability. Nothing will work sensibly until Americans are free to draw on their skills, intuitions, and values when confronting daily challenges. This is the only cure to alienation. This is also the only way to deliver good government."
"'Elected leaders come and go, but public unions just say no.' Hiding in plain sight is a fatal defect of modern democracy. Public employee unions have a death grip on the operating machinery of government. Schools can't work, bad cops can't be fired, and politicians sell their souls for union support. With this searing five-point indictment, Philip K. Howard argues that union controls have disempowered elected executives and should be unconstitutional.
Elected officials answer to public employees. Basic tools of good government have been eliminated. There's no accountability, detailed union entitlements make government largely unmanageable and unaffordable, and public policies are driven by what is good for public employees, not what is good for the public. Public unions keep it that way by brute political force—harnessing the huge cohort of public employees into a political force dedicated to preventing the reform of government.
The solution, Howard argues, is not political but constitutional. America's republican form of government requires an executive branch that is empowered to implement public policies, not one shackled to union controls. Public employees have a fiduciary duty to serve the public and should not be allowed to organize politically to harm the public."
