Albeit they possess the Might ...

Nonetheless, we have the will.

Last Tuesday evening (April 15), after arriving home, feeding the cats, and changing out of my work clothes, I opened Google News to discover Harvard's resistance to demands by  President Trump's administration. Columbia's capitulation was easy to retrieve and I quickly built the presentation which I posted that night. 

Driving in to work the next morning and commuting home that afternoon, I decided to send a donation to Harvard. Right now, the check is in an envelope with a cover letter and a printout of that blog post. I will drop it into a Postal Service branch along tomorrow's commute in and it will move to a USPS regional point after 11:30 AM. It took almost a week because my days begin at 4:30 AM and by 5:00 PM composing literature is difficult. Admittedly, the letter betrayed little erudition. Plain speaking is fundamental to technical communication, validating the importance of the narrative. After a few edits, the letter carried my message. 

Originally, the post launched with a bold blue Helvetica kicker: "TANSTAAFL: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." After a couple of days of reading and reviewing, I edited that out because it was too much message without context and delivering those precepts and conclusions would have detracted from the impact of the post. Silence is golden. 

My point then (and now) is that university researchers always believed that government money came with no other requirements than honesty. After a submitted proposal is accepted, following the norms of research were all that was required. The political progressivism of academia was never challenged by the granting agencies which largely shared those assumptions--and when not, they still gave out the money, lest they deny a valid inquiry for an invalid motive. 

That began with Vannevar Bush.  "In Science, The Endless Frontier, his 1945 report to the president of the United States, Bush called for an expansion of government support for science, and he pressed for the creation of the National Science Foundation." -- (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush) As an inventor, and then director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II, Bush articulated well the fact that the ultimate rewards of original research are often not predictable at the moment of creation. So, the government should fund "everything" (within reason; subject to peer review). 

But there is no such thing as a free lunch. Finally, the government came to collect its due and what it wanted was less, not more. There was now a political price to be paid. The social agenda of the party in power is now the norm and there is no peer review. Lysenkoism and Aryan Physics were someone else's problems and now they are ours. 

Edward Jenner's small pox vaccines (1796) were predicated on over 50 years of general scientific reporting from Constantinople and other Asian entrepôts. This was the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason. Experiment, publication, discussion, and debate brought material progress which included the steam engine. But there was no theory of thermodynamics--and no germ theory of disease. For over 100 years, the "animicules" revealed by Anton Leeuwenhoek's microscope were accepted as a consequence of disease, rather than the cause. Common knowledge credits Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, and others with the proofs, but ahead of them, in 1847, John Leonard Riddell of the New Orleans Medical College argued well. (NecessaryFacts here .) 

Does inoculation have unintended consequences? How could it not? Exploring those, understanding them, and building a theory that can be tested is a scientific project. 

"Cloudy Nights" is a discussion board for amateur astronomers. Chatting about the recent discovery of dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, I pointed out that DNA can edit and repair itself. My current library here in my office includes Genetics for Dummies. I make no pretense. And that is just one reason why I am not the U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services.

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The Lightbulb Does Not Need to be Changed 

If a Philosopher Falls in the Forest 

Innovation and Discovery 

20% of Scientists are Crooks 

Toxic Leadership

“You’re fired!” Pres. Donald Trump not only cannot get along with the people he hires, he denies them afterward. He called Gen. Jim Mattis “over-rated.” If we did not know Donald Trump from his own publicity about his success in real estate (The Art of the Deal, Random House, 1987), then his rise as a media personality should have warned us that he is not someone to take responsibility for his actions. 

March 13, 2020. Remarks and Press Conference on the Coronovirus outbreak

Q    Thank you so much, Mr. President.  Dr. Fauci said earlier this week that the lag in testing was, in fact, “a failing.”  Do you take responsibility for that?

And when can you guarantee that every single American who needs a test will be able to have a test?  What’s the date of that?

THE PRESIDENT:  Yeah, no, I don’t take responsibility at all, because we were given a — a set of circumstances and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time.  It wasn’t meant for this kind of an event with the kind of numbers that we’re talking about.  And what we’ve done is redesigned it very quickly with the help of the people behind me.  And we’re now in very, very strong shape.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference-3/

This is President Trump during an online meeting with state governors. Perhaps he had something else going on in his mind that made him feel defensive, but when I caught this image, he was listening to Gov. Larry Hogan, Republican, of Maryland, who was thanking him. 

GOVERNOR HOGAN:  Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, this is Larry Hogan, Chairman of the NGA.  First of all, I just want to thank you so much for this call today and I want to thank you for the great communication that you've had with all of the governors over the past few weeks.  It's been tremendous.

Mr. President, thank you for signing the second stimulus last night and for your ongoing efforts to mitigate the economic impact that we're all facing.  And thank you so much for appointing Vice President Pence, a former governor, to lead this crisis.  He has been terrific in working with all of us and reaching out to us.

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, Larry.

GOVERNOR HOGAN:  Yesterday, yesterday, we had a meeting of all of the governors at NGA, prior to this call.  And, you know, we were getting a lot--you're getting a lot of input--  you're being bombarded by 50 different people with different questions.  We try to consolidate it down to, kind of, a group of concerns that all of the governors agreed on were, sort of, our priorities.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-video-teleconference-governors-covid-19/

In the Middle Ages, military authority and civil authority were identical. As Europe reawakened, the military was subordinated to civilian control. Ever less often did dukes, kings, and emperors lead their troops into battle.The capture of Napoleon III at Sedan in 1871 was the dunce’s after school lesson. And military dictatorships are notoriously unsuccessful. So, the modern army carries out the orders it is given. The Second Gulf War was not just winnable: it was won. The fifth largest army in the world melted and evaporated. We then met them again in a new fog of war, a war that could not be won. Sometimes, being brilliantly intelligent is just not enough. (The Fourth Star previously on NecessaryFacts reviewed here.) 

But Pres. Donald Trump is not brilliant. People like him who become leaders need strong teams. Donald Trump never learned how to build a team. He just appoints people to jobs and fires them when they disagree with him. We are living through the consequences of that.

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The Leader's Bookshelf 

Leadership 

Extreme Ownership: How the Navy SEALs Lead and Win 

Make Your Bed 

Team of Teams 

Why a Level Playing Field?

Why does the government have a responsibility to make the playing field level? 

Let us at least be on the same playing field. Starting with...

"In commerce, a level playing field is a concept about fairness, not that each player has an equal chance to succeed, but that they all play by the same set of rules.
In a game played on a playing field, such as rugby, one team would have an unfair advantage if the field had a slope. Since some real-life playing fields do in fact have slopes, it is customary for teams to swap ends of the playing field at half time.
A metaphorical playing field is said to be level if no external interference affects the ability of the players to compete fairly.
Some government regulations are intended to provide such fairness, since all participants must abide by the same rules. However, they can have the opposite effect, for example if larger firms find it easier to pay for fixed costs of regulation. It may be added that if the rules [affect] different participants differently then they are not actually the same.
Handicapping might be thought of as the opposite concept, of unequal rules designed to make the outcome of play more equal." -- Wikipedia "Level Playing Field."

But let us see how this works in practice. The USA recently sued India at the WTO because India requires a percentage of domestic content in solar panels, disadvantaging imported materials. In another example, the Netherlands does not grant special state subsidies to its ports, though Germany, Belgium, and France do. The Netherlands claims that this is not a level playing field. Dutch ports are disadvantaged by state subsidies given to other ports.

Those are arguments about "free trade versus fair trade." It is alleged that when a national government subsidizes home industries, it disadvantages imports. Other subsidies give advantage to local exports into foreign markets where they disadvantage the unsubsidized local businesses there. 

 

Sprinter Dutee Chand has been fighting regulations
that define her gender by the levels of androgen
in her blood. She is not accused of doping.
These are her natural levels of a hormone
present in all women and all men.
All bodies are not created equal.

I suggest a micro-economic analysis of households, individuals, employees, and businesses. Ms. Smith is an executive who earns $250,000 per year. Every Saturday, she takes out her riding mower and manicures the large lawns and gardens around her home. Billy Jones has a lawn service. He points out that he can do the work more efficiently for less. He is willing to earn much less than Ms. Smith, say $100 for the two hours to mow, trim, and rake. Moreover, if Ms. Smith went to the office - even just her home office - she would be far more economically productive than she is being her own lawn service.

Ms. Smith listens to him, and agrees that she has better things to do. She goes into the house and comes out with 8-year old Samantha. "Want to learn to drive? Do a good job, all neat and clean, and I will give you $50. It will take you most of the morning. You will clear about $12.50 an hour." Billy Jones files a complaint with the World Trade Organization.

The concept of a "level playing field" applies to sports because competitive sports are zero-sum games. Business is not. Businesses create unlevel playing fields all the time. They change the rules of the game. New products and new services create new markets. 

The speed limits on streets and roads are a perfect example of a legally mandated level playing field for delivery companies. UPS, FedEx, the USPS, and all the many independents, even the bike couriers, all are subject to the same rules of the road. Amazon wants to deliver packages with drones. Where is your level playing field now? It is in the wrong dimension - Flatland, visited by a sphere.

Moreover, in some games - golf comes to mind - knowing the field - slopes, traps, trees, and all - and playing it to your advantage is part of the game.

Now with the Boston Celtics,
Isaiah Jamar Thomas is 5'9"
and plays on the same courts
as everyone else.

As noted in the Wikipedia article, the remedy in some sports is to switch goals after half-time. That way if there is a natural slope, the advantage goes to each side equally. But does it? Is a football field the same after half a game? Heraclitus would have a lot to say about that. The assumption is that either team could take equal advantage of a sloped field. How is that known? And if it were a real consideration, would not the officials actually measure the field for flatness? And would not some of those sports actually be played on fields with officially regulated slopes? 

What about basketball, another sport where the goals are swapped. No one claims that the gym is sloped. 

Note that in American Football, the first kickoff is settled with a coin toss. They do not have two kickoffs and average them to distribute the result. They do not flip the coin ten times and average that. You win or you lose the advantage on the toss of a coin. That's life... And as for chance, as Louis Pasteur famously noted, it favors the prepared mind.

Finally, as Wikipedia pointed out, attempting to level the playing field may actually deliver a disadvantage to a firm that cannot afford the price of lobbying for legislation.  

The concept of a level playing field in economics is a floating abstraction, a logical construct without empirical validity.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Where All the Children are Above Average

An Abundance of Talent

Nerd Nation

Science vs. Common Sense

World Peace Through Massive Retaliation

Politics and the Inverse Square Law

The farther you are from something, the less you know about. In physics, this applies to the force of gravity, to electro-static attraction or repulsion, to the intensity of sound.  More generally, it applies to social and political distances.  Political decisions made at city hall, the county seat, the state capital, and Washington D.C. must suffer by the square of the distance from a lack of information.

From DigitalArtForm.com

On the other hand, when you make economic choices for yourself, your family, or household, you are most directly informed about the facts and the consequences.  The further into the future you plan, the less you know and the greater your risks.

Political plans to save the planet and the future generations that inhabit it must suffer from degradations of knowledge along every dimension of true costs, actual benefits, and both primary and secondary consequences intended and unintended.  Indeed, it is quite likely that many, if not most, future generations will not even be on this planet.

The world’s oldest continuing companies (see Wikipedia here) are all narrowly focused on mundane pursuits such as beer, wine, candy, jewelry, and hospitality.  It is hard enough to make beer successfully for 200 years.  The oldest companies in the United States (Wikipedia here) reflect the economic paradigm of capitalism: pencils, chemicals, tools, and newspapers. And we still have old breweries and continuing farms.

http://www.classroomhearing.org/images/6db_drop.jpg

 Governments are less successful.  The UK and USA are wonderful exceptions. England last executed a king in 1649.  The Glorious Revolution of 1688 defined the status of crown and parliament.  The Constitution of the United States was ratified a hundred years later.  Although Iceland does claim the longest continuing parliament, the Althing, that institution only existed within a context of subordination to Norway, Sweden, or Denmark, as Iceland was not politically independent from 1262 to 1944. Generally, governments come and go with alarming regularity exactly because they are so poor at both predicting the future and responding to new circumstances.

SUNY Canton Engineering
and Construction Management
Interactive here.

Perhaps the best judgment came from Prof. Newt Gingrich when he was Speaker of the House.  Addressing a Republican Party fund-raiser, he said of the government, “These people are not evil. They just have the wrong information system.”  In other words, they are informed by power, not market.  And the physics of power is not encouraging. Though not all analogies between electrical circuits and political action are valid, generally, any resistance can draw more power until the system overloads.   

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The Science of Liberty

The Remarkable Story of Risk

Entrepreneurship

Space is the Place: Come to the High Frontier

A Visitor from the CIA

Finally catching up on some LinkedIn notices, I saw this.  

I cleaned up the capture to remove a couple of commercial contacts. I noted today's date in the red box to help timestamp the visit.  

Below the CIA is a reference to "Someone in Lansing Community College in the Security and Investigations Industry."  My degrees include an associate's in criminal justice from Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, but I did attend LCC 1973-1990, and taught there part time, 1985-1990.  I never applied for work or sought a contract with the CIA. To write an article about Soviet Computer Technology (Defense Computing, April 1990), I did send a FOIA to the CIA and they were much more forthcoming than was the cultural attache at the USSR embassy.  But that was quite a long time ago.   Make of that what you will. 

Contradictions in the Constitution

“He sat at a table, and the light of his lamp fell on the copy of an ancient document. He had marked and crossed out the contradictions in its statements that had once been the cause of its destruction.”  Atlas Shrugged.

1. The basic contradiction was not clarifying those things which the government is allowed to do from those things which only the government is allowed to do.
2. The Bill of Rights was not originally incorporated to the states.
3. No "Nullifcation Clause" prevented amendments that alter the fundamental intent of the original document.
4. The Seventh Amendment is questionable.

Should the government maintain post roads or post offices? They may well need their own couriers and dispatches, of course. (See “Unlimited Constitutional Government” linked below.)  However, it is a basic contradiction in the Constitution that granting some power to Congress suddenly creates a government monopoly in what should be an open market. Let there be government offices for sending correspondences to and from the government, if that is needed, but why does everyone else lose the right to carry mail?

Signing the Constitution (Library of Congress)

Consider the daily journals of Congress. Article I, Section 5: “Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same…” However, private stenographers and reporters attended the sessions and published their own accounts.  As the meetings of the U.S. Senate were not open to the public until 1795, at first these were only for the House of Representatives. (See The Early Congressional Debates and Reporters by Samuel Oppenheim, New York, 1889.)   In the 1980s, Hanna Information Systems, StateNet and other private legislative reports pioneered computerized access, ahead of the Library of Congress's own THOMAS System. Despite the attitudes of the first U.S. Senate, it would be contrary to our intent of an open government to prohibit that. But it is not explicit as something that Congress is empowered to do, but which others also can do. 

Like building post roads and publishing a journal, coining money is another business that the government might need under its wing for convenience but which should not be prohibited to others.  Bernard von Nothaus was prosecuted for his “Liberty Dollars” and called a “financial terrorist” just for making coins.  Legislation over the past 200 years outlawing tokens proved unsuccessful, as a trip to a video arcade will show. Community currency such as Ithaca Time Dollars and Bay Bucks continue unharassed.  The persecution of Nothaus was entirely political: the Obama Administration seized $60 million in bullion by claiming a legal monopoly on coinage via the Constitution.

Changing the date of the Inauguration (20^th Amendment) was only a nod to modern transportation and communication.  Lowering the voting age, correcting the evils of slavery, and extending the vote to women were easy to accept as the extension of political rights in a democracy.  The 11^th and 12^th Amendments remain obscure to most people who claim to know the Constitution.  However, the 12^th in particular, like the 17^th (direct election of senators) was no mere technical adjustment but a structural change in the mechanism of power.  The political party system was accepted and the 12^th assured that the President and Vice President would come from the same party.  How wise that was may be debatable. 

Easily, the worst examples were the Income Tax (16^th) and Prohibitiion (18^th).  The Volstead Act (18^th Amendment) was repealed by the 21^st.  That raises the question of another basic contradiction: the lack of a Nullification Clause.  It is easy to argue that in case of a bad law, the forces of justice will eventually triumph and it will be repealed.  However, the 18^th brought on open warfare among rival gangs and between them all and the government.  It was an expensive mistake.  No Amendment can repay the victims.  And we still have the Income Tax.  A Nullification Clause would prohibit any amendment that violates the intention of the document considering its full text and meaning. 

Another contradiction in the original document was its lack of enforcement at the state level. Just as the original Constitution described the mechanisms of the federal government, so, too, did the Bill of Rights only protect citizens from the federal government.  Massachusetts collected taxes for the Congregational Church until 1833.  Only in 1990 did a state appeals court in South Carolina finally strike down laws requiring affirmation of religious beliefs to be a standard.  After the War Between the States, when the former Confederate states were re-admitted to the Union, they modeled their new constitutions after those of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.  In order to serve on a jury, vote, or run for office, you had to swear (or affirm) a belief in a Supreme Being.  Not only did the First Amendment did not apply to the states, you could be searched, seized, tried without a jury, and even be tortured for a confession (Brown versus Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278; 1936).  The Bill of Rights did not apply to the states.  Still today, the 2^nd Amendment has not been incorporated fully to the states.

Should the government set weights and measures? As weights and measures are fundamental to contract law, it would seem so. But nothing prevents you from having your own set, or from the general market ignoring the government, as we still use the English system in a nation legally on the Metric system. In fact, until the 1830s and later, many merchants along the East Coast kept their books in pounds-shilling-pence, despite the definition of a dollar. Banknotes of the period often showed Spanish or Mexican coins while promising to pay a quarter or half dollar. Industrial goods of many kinds come in many dimensions not defined by law; and yet, nothing falls down or collapses, no work grinds to a halt for the lack of a compatible fastener. So, why does the government need to define weights and measures?

In her essay, “Government Financing in a Free Society” Ayn Rand asserted that the government is the servant of the people, but not the unpaid servant.  According to the 7^th Amendment in the Bill of Rights, you are guaranteed a jury trial for suits over $20 in value.  For nearly 1000 years, from the Great Fairs of the Middle Ages, private courts have handled contract disputes.  Read any credit card contract, any mortgage, any car loan, or the terms of an “I Accept” click.  You easily agreed to private arbitration ahead of any trial in a government court.  You might have agreed to binding arbitration, giving up your right to a court trial for a dispute involving more than $20.  Perhaps the Seventh Amendment is a contradiction that needs to be fixed.

We do not know what Ayn Rand would have removed from the Constitution.  However, her Judge inserted this into his draft: Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade.

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Unlimited Constitutional Government

Another Example of Unlimited Constitutional Government

An Objective Foundation for Government
Ayn Rand versus Conservatives

Another Example of Unlimited Constitutional Government

Regardless of how stringent the constitution, the government always can be expanded.  Does the legislature have a right to establish its own reference library? The Library of Congress serves that purpose, and serves the nation secondarily.  Here in Michigan, the legislature has its library - open to the public at their request on our behalf.  They also have a museum.  A legislative museum might seem to be out of bounds, but certainly not every archive comes in the form of a book.  The government must have the right to record its own actions.  By extension, those acts - the papers; the artifacts - would become meaningless without a record of the cultural context.  So, a museum would be appropriate to support the knowledge base of the government.  How far would it be extended?

One of the young librarians, Will Tuchrello, in the South Asia department (which has Southeast Asia), saw that I was a serious researcher and he found a desk for me in a "researchers" room so I did not have to be out in the reading room. I also had a place to store a heavy bag of nickels which I used at the copy machine. I could also keep my books on the desk until I finished with them. My research really sped up!
[...]
But I am happy to report that Dr. Tuchrello was promoted up through the ranks and is now the Director of the LOC's Southeast Asia office in Jakarta, Indonesia. He travels the region looking for references, posters, maps, etc. to purchase to send back to the LOC. The LOC also trades American publications with countries too! The LOC could not have found a more dedicated person for the job! 

Howard A. Daniel III, E-Sylum Volume 14, Number 06, February 6, 2011
NUMISMATIC BOOK MUTILATION AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS here

So, in a strictly limited constitutional republic, it could be necessary to have librarians traveling the world trading on behalf of the government.

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS
Unlimited Constitutional Government (January 2011 blogs) here.
An Objective Foundation for Government

Unlimited Constitutional Government

Begin with that ideal state limited by a constitution with strict language that is narrowly understood and big government is just a matter of time.

Most Americans agree that we have too much government. The general theory along the right wing among conservatives, libertarians, and objectivists is that we need to adhere to strict construction, not loose interpretation, of the Constitution.  Specifically, the “minarchists” (versus anarchists) claim that the only proper functions of government are those that protect rights; and that government should be limited to defense (armies, police) and adjudication (civil and criminal courts).  Ayn Rand was not alone in saying this, but of all the advocates for individualism and the market she did most clearly state the hypothesis.   

One classroom in the FBI's 10-acred Hogan's Alley
urban simulation training site at Quantico, Virginia.

Government is an agency of law.  Where do laws come from?  We are comfortable with legislatures and executives.  Even a part-time parliament and a temporary president need buildings.  Certainly, the courts cannot meet in open fields.  Even if the police and army lived in tents, they would need at least those, though, hopefully, we could shelter them in better facilities.  How are these to be built and maintained?  What prevents the government from constructing them, using government- trained skilled trades workers from government craft programs? Military academies train military engineers. Why would the government not have other schools for training civil, mechanical, electrical, etc., engineers and scientists for government service?

Libertarians would like to privatize the post office, but does the government have no right to transmit its own messages? If the government can publish legislative minutes and proposed laws and notes of enforcement and judicial proceedings, then can the government not own its printing presses, television and radio stations, websites and other communications media? What mandate is there that the government must pay private contractors to provide any or all of its services?

U.S. Treasury Building being restored.

Today, the federal government operates military academies and police academies. Should the government not operate its own law schools, legislative seminaries, and bureau or agency colleges? If government buildings are not to be insults, they must be decorative, and thus we can imagine government schools of art and design. What prevents the existence of government craft manufacturers to make the things created by the designers and artists for use in government facilities?  Who maintains government facilities? Who paints the walls; and who trims the grass; and who clears the snow and ice? 

We accept that courts need support, of course, from recorders, bailiffs, and clerks. The police need dispatchers, clerks, receptionists.  These people need equipment.  Who makes it?  Napoleon Bonaparte was not the first general to realize that an army moves on its stomach.  What prevents the police and courts from having their own internal departments for food production and preparation? Who produces the pots and pans and stoves and refrigerators?  If the legislature decided that its work could be better engaged listening to music, could there not be a government orchestra? After all, the military has its bands and orchestras, why not the courts and police, and why not the engineers and gardeners? 

Products of the Springfield Armory.
(Where does the steel come from?)

Today’s news contains complaints about the wages paid to government employees (see close), but the open market in labor determines those payments.  More to the point, every business wants the best employees and, certainly, we, the people deserve the best in government services.  Why not have this work done by government employees, trained at government schools, clothed from government factories, fed from government farms?  What mandate is there that government employees cannot be given homes as part of their compensation? 

This is the “arsenal theory” of government.  In order to assure that it can carry out its strictly defined and narrowly interpreted functions, the government must be able to produce the goods and services it needs.

There is another theory: COTS – commercial off the shelf technology.  Patriotic innovators and greedy charlatans have always wanted to sell things to the state, but the modern system of procurement originates in the industrial revolution which made interchangeable parts possible.  (See close.)  Would the only allowable alternative be that government be supplied via competitive bid contracts?  It may be a sound theory.  Today, those contracts are the source of the “military industrial complex” and the “revolving door” between agencies and their suppliers. 

Over the years, I have interviewed many business people for magazine articles that I write.  A sales manager for IBM once told me that if the first he heard of a government agency placing an open bid for a printer was reading about it in a bid list, he would fire the salesman assigned to the account.  It is the job of the technical marketing representative to help the client understand their needs.  Ideally for them, the provider crafts the language of the bid.  How fast should a printer be?  How often should you need to replace the ribbons?  Those are technical questions.  The same principle applies to new jet fighter craft.  Competing providers will vie against each other for the opportunity to inform and influence the specifications.  Today, both the arsenal and COTS modes are in operation.  Nothing in republican, libertarian, or objectivist political theory provides a standard to know which should be what. 

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS
Another Example of Unlimited Constitutional Government
An Objective Foundation for Government
Republican Rebels

City Air Makes You Free
Money is Speech