DOGE Isn't Finding Waste, but Social Engineering

DOGE (The Department of Government Efficiency) has dominated the news for the haste of its firing practices, whereas its actual findings have been largely buried by mainstream outlets. What DOGE has revealed about the nation’s expenditures is fascinating, because it shows that it is not simply the case that the government has been wasteful. Of course it is wasteful. People are rarely frugal with money that is not their own. Yet, when we look at the expenditures, we don’t see mere waste, which is to say, reckless or frivolous spending. Take these grants, for example:

• $70,000 — DEI Music Festival in Ireland

• $1.5 million — to advance DEI in Serbia's workplaces

• $47,000 — a transgender opera in Colombia

• $32,000 — a comic book series in Peru with a homosexual protagonist

The grant description for the music festival, for example, explains, “Deliver a live musical event to promote the US and Irish shared values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.”

These are not random excessive uses of money. They are specific and intentional. This is not haphazard “waste”. Golden toilet seats are wasteful. A homosexual comic book series is an explicit and carefully considered use of funds for a purpose. The purpose is the export of culture overseas. It is a variant of what many have called “nation building.” We tend to think of armed troops in the Middle East when we hear that phrase, or perhaps secret CIA efforts to swing elections toward leaders more friendly to American interests. Yet, it is no less true when we try to change a foreign culture by exporting the worst of our own. And indeed, that is what such money was being used for.

These programs are immoral because of the values they espouse, of course, but also because of the disconnect between the taxpayers who fund the nation’s purse and the use of their funds. In other words, Americans do not benefit from these expenditures, and most would not approve of them. Tax money is extracted under threat and is then distributed to such programs with neither knowledge nor redress being made available.

It’s easy to see the funding of a foreign music festival as a mere frivolous use of funds, but that would be incorrect, or at least incomplete. Just as DEI was slid into schools and police departments to shift the cultures within them, the same ‘progressive’ policies were being encouraged internationally, to attempt to create a different world. Children in Peru were being introduced to the same homosexual agenda as children in American schools, all using taxpayer dollars.

If we are honest, we must admit that America, if only because of its size, will always export its culture, intentionally or otherwise. Long-running attempts to smear the British Empire’s efforts to spread civilization have necessarily resulted in the besmirching of anything that might afford a parallel. Yet, we should export culture—but only if ours is better.

Cultures are not equal. The British Empire put an end to the discarding of unwanted infants and the burning of widows because it had the bravado to say, “Our way is better,” “Our values are better,” and even “Our faith is better.” Nowadays, that’s condemned as a shameful attitude, unless “our way” involves drag events for children or transgender operas. It is not inherently bad to export a culture, but it is monstrous to spread the degeneracy that is crippling the West—destroying families, dethroning God, and fomenting chaos.

In an increasingly connected world, cultures will merge and mingle; isolation is no longer an option. America will continue having an impact on other countries even if DOGE can eliminate every government grant that is meant to export progressivism and godlessness. Cultural export in itself does not have to be lamentable. It becomes a problem if what we are exporting is actively harmful. It is not the case that America has nothing good to offer the world. America is filled with gifted intellectuals, creators, writers, artists, engineers, etc. It has merely been in effect for too long that those of a particular ideology get the funding that makes their voices louder. That doesn’t have to be so ad infinitum.

There are some ironies here. The academics who shriek at any hint of “colonialism” or “imperialism” do not hesitate to spend taxpayer money promoting their perverse culture; indeed, they often tie the acceptance of their propaganda to the release of funds that can meet real needs in distant lands, such as food aid and disaster relief. The cultural mavens of moral relativism denounce Christians for “imposing their morality on others”, while doing the very same to unfortunate people overseas. And with these ironies, there is tragedy: It didn’t have to be that way. And with the tragedy there is hope: It doesn’t have to be that way. If American taxpayers choose, they can vote to aid people in crisis. And if American citizens are wise, they will produce a morally superior culture that other people will welcome.