But the Oklahoma school wasn't trying to get public money for a nonsectarian purpose. It was trying to get public money to teach theology, not build a playground. That's why it was good to say no.

Oklahoma was different from the Trinity Lutheran case. Trinity Lutheran was about religious institutions being singled out for exclusion from public resources for nonsectarian purposes (a playground) on the basis of their faith. That's discriminatory.

7. Move slow, and respect stuff, especially old stuff.

Remember Chesterton's Fence: understand why the old fence was there before you tear it down.

DOGE's AI is not respecting Chesterton's Fence.

6. Silicon Valley's mantra, "move fast and break stuff," is a fun frat-boy slogan that captures the brash excitement of young entrepreneurs.

It's a stupid ethos to organize your whole life around, and dangerous for government, which has to *build* stuff.

5. Also, Musk's approach seems to have limitless optimism and faith in AI. This also strikes me as a very bad idea. It's a new technology with potentially revolutionary implications. Maybe go slow and test it on smaller things before the entire US govt?

4. Imagine, say, J. Edgar Hoover with access to DOGE's AI-powered database. That should terrify you.

3. As troubling is the potential for abuse. A virtue of the US govt's decentralized structure is that it limits the damage any one corrupt official can do. More centralization means fewer checks, more opportunities for someone to abuse access for private gain.

2. The concentration of information, and its accessibility to AI, is a really, really bad idea. Any big database is an obvious target for foreign intelligence. Hack one computer and get the entire US government's information warehouse.