Technocracy

One part of the liberal governance agenda has been, for decades, to put our faith in experts and to stress the independence of government agencies. Sure you don't want expert advice to be corrupted, and you want some protection from the massive power of the federal government merely being at the whim of one man, but ultimately we do elect a boss and that boss needs to step in and tell them what to do sometimes.

Even the best most expert staffed agency filled with nothing but benevolent public-minded civil servants are only on one piece of the puzzle at a time, and sometimes an agenda needs to be comprehensive.

Of course there's no reason to assume such expertise and benevolence, and in fact maintaining a sense of independence moves corruption into the hands of much less accountable individuals.

Some happy balance exists, but I'm pretty sure that for a lot of things we're waaay off balance all in one direction.

Nothing guarantees the people running these shops are smartest than the average blogger.