John Goldberg wrote the other day about the problem of mission creep, with organizations and agencies moving from focusing on a core mission (like space travel) to something that is unrelated (like making Muslim nations feel good about their scientific contributions). Particularly interesting was his observation about how off these distractions are the outcome of the overall big government, liberal ideology.  He writes:



Every agency must advance the liberal agenda.


And this is where the Catch-22 catches. The dream of a nimble, focused, problem-solving government is undone by the reality of hyper-mission creep. When every institution is yoked to an overarching philosophy or mission, its actual purpose can become an afterthought. In 2005, volunteer firefighters from all over the country offered to help with Katrina’s aftermath. But FEMA sent many of them to Atlanta first to undergo diversity and sexual-harassment training (which most already had).


Such examples are everywhere. What is political correctness other than the gears of the liberal Gleichschaltung? The financial crisis was worsened because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac became tools for liberal social engineering. Let’s not even mention public schools.



There could hardly be a better example of this than the revelation that Nicole Kurokawa posted about yesterday, from Diana Furthgott-Roth’s recent piece, that the new “financial reform bill” includes a provision “that race and gender employment ratios, if not quotas, must be observed by private financial institutions that do business with the government.”


This has nothing to do with improving the financial services system and has everything to do with advancing a long-held liberal goal of imposing a quota system for race and gender on private corporations.


Maybe this phenomenon isn’t best characterized as mission creep; it’s the stealth, purposeful advancement of the true big government, liberal mission by any means necessary.