Hamill: Elon Musk, the IRS and the perils of overreach

Each of us comes from a lineage. As I got older, I became more interested in tracing the origins of my ancestors.

I have traced my roots back through records of ship arrivals at Ellis Island and census records from as long as one hundred years ago.

My paternal grandfather was a farmer. My father was an electrician who could build anything and was hired out to do home remodeling after his retirement.

My father also repaired all our cars and motorcycles, built my sister and I three go carts, and repaired all the neighbors’ appliances. He did all this for fun.

My maternal grandmother was a seamstress and worked in a rug factory. My maternal grandfather worked at a dairy but also was a part-time singer and piano player.

My mother was a nurse who ended her career as a director of nursing education for a regional hospital.

I can’t keep a plant alive. I can handle virtually no home repairs. Same for auto and appliance repairs. I can’t sing or play any instruments.

I suppose my mother’s education stint is as close as I come to holding the skill sets of any of my ancestors.

This is not unusual. We each have our own set of skills. And that’s just fine. No one needs to be skilled in all tasks.

Pliny the Elder was a Roman author and philosopher in the first century. He wrote “Natural History,” a 37-volume encyclopedia of ancient knowledge.

In one of the volumes, Pliny the Elder tells a tale of the Greek painter Apelles of Kos. Apelles lived almost 400 years before the first century Pliny.

Apelles was said to hide as people viewed his paintings so that he could hear their unvarnished opinions.

At one viewing, a Greek shoemaker noted that the straps on Hellenic period footwear in the painting were not accurate.

The cobbler was impressed when he next viewed the painting to see that the error had been corrected.

However, the cobbler then started to pick apart other parts of the painting. Apelles was said to respond, “Let the cobbler not judge beyond the crepida (sandal with straps).”

The 16th-century English author, Richard Taverner — best known for the Taverner’s Bible translation — repeated this as, “Let not the shoemaker go beyond hys shoe.”

The federal government has a complex structure. It serves 340 million Americans in a variety of ways.

When tasks get large and complex, a certain degree of inefficiency is to be expected. The trick is to keep the failures within an acceptable range.

Elon Musk is a visionary. He is clearly an intelligent man. He has earned vast wealth and may be the richest man ever.

He hires young computer hardware and software whiz kids. Philadelphia-area residents still remember the 1950 National League champion Phillies, called the whiz kids.

The Phillies’ whiz kids could play baseball. The Musk whiz kids excel at other games.

But none of this means that either Musk or his computer whiz kids know anything about the operations of various federal agencies.

I suppose with time and earnest effort they could learn. But what we see is the dismantling of agencies by shoemakers who have gone beyond their shoe.

Since Apelles, as related by his biographer Pliny the Elder, made this observation in the 300-some B.C. years, we should have this knowledge.

Yet I keep hearing Musk’s actions justified as “he is a genius,” or “he is the most successful businessman ever.”

Greek Hellenic period footwear was elaborate and difficult to make. Cobblers were craftsmen. That did not justify turning over other tasks to them.

Musk knows nothing of the operations of the IRS. The same is true of his whiz kids. Yet they are being allowed to systematically dismantle the IRS.

The IRS collects federal revenues. It does so based on federal tax laws. The Biden administration Congress gave it more resources.

The Trump Congress was expected to take back some or all of the new Biden funding. If so, that’s the way the system works.

But the system has no role for the shoemaker, no matter how skilled, to go beyond hys shoe.

There’s an English idiom, “It’s all Greek to me.” But understanding that Elon Musk and his whiz kids do not know how to run the IRS should not be Greek to us.