Saturday, February 28, 2009

IF GOVERNMENT IS THE ANSWER, IT WAS A STUPID QUESTION




Yes, I know I used that title line before, but it remains as true as ever. Today, for the benefit of those of us who were unfortunate enough to have been indoctrinated in publik skools and "informed" by the Mainstream Media, we will review a bit of American history.


Let's go back to those halcyon days of the Carter Administration, when a left-wing weenie non-messiah vowed to cure America's "malaise". At least when he wasn't busy being attacked by giant swimming killer rabbits.


Making mortal sacrifices on the liberal altar of "human rights" Jimmy punished American grain farmers and Olympic athletes for Soviet transgressions and then turned Rhodesia, "The Breadbasket of Africa", into Zimbabwe, "The Hell-hole of the World." Trying to play nice with the Iranian jihadists (like Barack is now, sending them fuzzy touchy-feely letters of love and kindness, dealing from a position of weakness rather than strength), "Peace in our Time" Carter got us bitch-slapped with the Hostage Crisis. And he gave away the Panama Canal.


On the home-front, things were just as depressing with the horrendous gas lines and shortages. Somebody shot porn king Larry Flynt...twice...with a .44 Magnum and he didn't die. The Bee Gees were at the top of the disco charts and Dallas was on TV and Star Trek the movie came out and...oh, the humanity! The horror! I can't go on!


But then Jimmy's sheer ineptitude gave us eight years of Reagan, so it turned out alright after awhile. And not even Jimmy wanted to give $900,000,000 U.S. taxpayer dollars to Hamas, like Barry S does. And, if Jimmy the Incompetent is still worried about his legacy, Obama is gonna make him look like a super genius in less than four years.


Anyhooo, one of the Jimbo's many great ideas was the creation of a little old entity known as the Department of Energy. Today, this agency has morphed into a monstrosity that runs an annual budget in excess of $24 billion per year, employs 16,000 government drones and hacks, and approximately 100,000 contracted employees. They've been working hard at their mission for better than three decades now.


OK, show of hands. Why was this agency created. Does anybody remember? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?


That's right. It was created to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. And what a great job they've done at that. Let's give 'em a big hand, ladies and gentlemen! WHOO-HOO!


That, boys and girls, is how government works, in a nutshell. No matter how good an idea might sound in the beginning, giving the problem to government to solve is, like P.J. O'Rorke says, like giving car keys and whiskey to teenage boys.


A government agency will NEVER EVER SOLVE ANY PROBLEM. Period. If they did, then they would be out of a job and have to go out and find real work that might actually expose them to such nasties as labor, competition, and productivity. Instead, they will "manage" the problem until the Second Coming (no Barack, is not the Second Coming), and even after that if they think they can get away with it.


Plus, most government agencies are hopelessly redundant, redundant, redundant, with many different entities working (unsuccessfully and expensively and without any coordination) on the same projects.


For instance? There are 342 different "economic development" programs, 130 separate Federal programs for "at-risk" youth, 45 different agencies conducting federal criminal investigations, 23 agencies for delivering aid to former Soviet republics, and 12 different food safety organizations which, in case you didn't notice, haven't been keeping our food all that safe lately anyway.


So, call me a kook, but I think it's a bad idea to have the government taking over the banking industry and the auto industry and the health care industry and I don't know what all. Once in place, such agencies would never be removed for any reason, would never solve a single problem, and would become just another bottomless pit to shovel money into.


But hey, why not? They're spending your money, not their own money, so it's no big deal to The Powers That Be. Better break out the Vaseline; they're gonna "help" us some more.

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