The Career Civil Servant.

What does it mean when someone involved in a political scandal is described as being a “career civil servant”? Have these people undergone some sort of cranial procedure? Are they politically the equivalent of eunuchs?, having had their political organs removed thus making them incapable of political operation? I hardly think so.

Civil service at the Post Office Department, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drug Agency (FDA), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) is not a higher calling. It’s a job working for the largest employer in the United States, an employer that’s always hiring. One that offers compensation packages equal to or better than you find in the private sector with the added benefit of almost armor plated job security. In an era when the disappearance of the 40 year plus career with a single employer is mourned, the possibility is alive and well in the civil service. To be sure, there are non-military civil assignments with danger attached, but to be equally as sure, the IRS isn’t one of them.

Career “civil servants” have played the game correctly. They’ve filled out the multi-page questionnaires and applications and waited months for the response. Having been successful, the climbers have correctly judged the environment in which they existed and behaved accordingly. They wrote their reports in language that couldn’t be read as offensive to anyone’s sensibilities, they have been scrupulously politically correct, and have been duly promoted. Those who chaffed at the requirement of total surrender to diversity, inclusiveness, and correctness have been winnowed out and moved to the private sector.

So, to say that someone is a career public servant is, in general, just about the farthest thing in the world from saying that they are apolitical with no axe to grind.

But that’s just what an average guy thinks.

Comprehensive Legislation

Comprehensive legislation of ANY kind is the enemy of the American people.

To fully realize this you must first understand that the federal government of the United States is incapable of effectively administering even the most simple program imaginable. The reason for this is quite simple: Thanks to the 17th amendment (close kin to the 18th) members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate are selected by popular election. This means that both bodies of congress are subject to the intense lobbying efforts of the same special interest groups, and those aren’t just corporate fat cats. They run the gamut from the Boy Scouts of America to the AARP. From the SEIU to the NRA, and every alphabet soup trade organization with a dues paying membership you can think of. They are ALL trying to look out for the best interests of their members….. people like you and me, and the devil take the hindmost.

And so when they put “Comprehensive” legislation together it must necessarily contain something for everyone, or at least not seem to favor one group over another. These bills are often very large and VERY complex with inner workings that no one (especially not the voting members of the bodies themselves) understands or has even read. It’s only a matter of what did they have to agree to in order to get their little bit inserted back there in the back, somewhere after page one thousand where there’s no chance at all that anyone will see it.

Today’s “Comprehensive” legislation concerns immigration. One side wants a complete amnesty for those who have come here illegally and open boarders so no one will ever have to come here illegally again. The other wants to control and monitor who comes in and for those already here illegally to face some consequence for violation of the law before they can avail themselves of the naturalization process. This is a vast oversimplification to be sure, because the existing machinery of legal immigration is woefully out of date and for practical purposes worthless. Foreign “students” come and go as they please, some occasionally taking time out to plot the nation’s downfall and kill as many of us as they can. Living on government payments and student loans they travel around the country and back home as freely as someone with an assured and generous income, seemingly not having to worry about things as simple as going to work every day, or abiding by the terms of their visas.

But we are told yet again not to worry. All of this will be taken care of in the “Comprehensive” legislation. We are asked to believe yet again that the federal government, which is arguably run by diverse special interest groups, is capable of designing, implementing, and then administering what it takes over a thousand pages of written text to even describe. The reality is a cruel joke. The economist Milton Friedman has rightly said that “if you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand”. Everyone knows that it’s a joke, but everyone also knows that it’s true. And yet we are asked again, even in the wake of the administration’s now confirmed lies about the Affordable Care Act, the IRS computer crashes, NSA spying and the disastrous healthcare.gov roll out to believe that they can build it. “Trust us” we’re told. “We’re from the government”. “It’s the right thing to do”.

The reality is that once the complex “Comprehensive” Frankenstein monster is agreed to and passed the administration in power will simply enforce whichever parts are in the interests of THEIR particular special interest sponsors and leave the rest. Bits and pieces will be quietly amended out of existence once the stage lights have turned to focus on some other issue. “Yes”. “We believe in border security, but we can’t let that stand in the way of progress”. You can see how it will happen already because it’s already being said.

“Comprehensive” legislation is your enemy. “Ala carte”, single function legislation that you can read and understand is your friend, and a friend to your nation.

But that’s just what an average guy thinks.

Used Everything

Not too long ago I was shopping for an electric guitar and as luck would have it, I’m now the owner of THE single, most beautiful electric guitar on the planet. Not to get too technical, when new it was a mid priced Epiphone semi solid body electric. No matter, I just wanted to brag on it a little.

However, in my search I noticed the prominence of many “Road Tested” models. These are new guitars whose finish has been distressed by who knows what means to look like the instruments have spent years on the road with grizzled, or bluesy, or drug addled musicians.

I’m not sure I understand this phenomenon, although it’s not too far out of common practice since aged, acid washed, stone washed, pre soiled, distressed jeans have become common apparel. I guess. I can see why an aspiring young garage musician might opt for an inexpensive “copy” (as I did), to make himself look more experienced but it mystifies me as to why someone with two or three thousand dollars to spend would buy a guitar that looked as if it had been owned by someone who was unappreciative of the quality and value that they held in their hands.

But in keeping with the trend, I have a few suggestions to make if you can imagine that.

1) Cars: I’m sure that the big three auto makers in Detroit can produce models that are brand new and mechanically perfect, but that look as if they’ve been driven by teens for 10 years. Broken tail lights and fogged headlight lenses would be a standard feature, body rust a much sought after option. Nothing makes you feel good about your life quite like the smell of spilled milk in the trunk of a new car.

2) Women: It could become en vogue for young women to get cosmetic surgery to wrinkle their faces and put little cellulite moguls on their hips. Sagging breasts and arm flaps could add a certain something to today’s ingénue . And body hair…… oh, the body hair.

3) Men: Take the libido and important equipment of 20 year old and put it in a body that looks like that of his 50 year old father…… balding, with a lot of abdominal fat, back, nose, and ear hair, and man boobs. Whoooo – Eeeeee.

I’m on to something here, and you know I am.

And that’s what an average guy thinks.

Personalized Costs

So I remember some discussion a while back where someone was accusing someone else of wanting to privatize gains while socializing risks. I’m pretty sure it was about banks, but it holds for what I was thinking about recently.

A lot of the discussion lately has been of gun violence, and how to stop it. Chicago is often held up as a good example of how very restrictive gun laws don’t have their intended effect. Of course progressive control minded types like to say that the guns are coming in from out of state, which I suppose they must be, but I have to wonder: since it’s so much easier to buy guns in other states, why isn’t the murder rate high there? Why isn’t the gun homicide rate universally high? Why is it only in the large metro areas? Gangs? Drugs? Gangsta Rap? Welfare mentality? Single moms? Absent dads? Chem trails? Who knows, but here we are. We don’t know why it happens, but the statistical proof is almost beyond denying that the more you restrict lawful gun ownership (which is the only gun ownership that you CAN restrict) the more helpless common citizens are. Criminals may be dumb, but on the whole, they know how and when to exploit an advantage.

The framers of the Constitution, which is the blueprint for our government, the authors of our very way of life, were distrustful governmental power, some of them so much so that that they insisted on the inclusion of the first ten amendments (the Bill of Rights) so as to make it very clear what the rights of citizens were and what the government could not take away unless the citizenry got together and OFFICIALLY took a right away from themselves. The 18th amendment is a perfect example of this procedure. 1) Stern, bossy woman gets people all riled up. 2) Convinces them that they themselves are not to be trusted. 3) Convinces them to amend the Constitution and deny themselves the right to self determination. 4) People sober up and realize they made a terrible mistake. 5) They again amend the Constitution reinstating the very right that they had taken from themselves previously. It’s not hard to do. But it’s like the Hokey Pokey….. there are rules. There’s a procedure. You just can’t start shaking your right hand all about. There’s an order of operations that has to be followed.

So what do we do about gun violence? There ARE laws but certain types of people (criminals mainly) don’t seem to be obeying them. So let’s use speeding in an automobile as an example. What works there? Let’s say there’s a stretch of road and the speed limit on that road is…… oh, say 70 mph. But a certain percentage of the people don’t want to drive 70, they want to drive 80. Does it make sense to change the speed limit to 60 mph? The same bunch of people are still going to want to drive 80, so the only people really effected are the law abiders. Okay change the speed limit to 50 miles per hour. But the 80 club is still going to be prone to drive 80 and the rest of the people have now become law breakers because they don’t want to and won’t drive 50.

So the question is: why don’t we simply enforce the laws we already have on the books? Or apply harsher penalties? Increase the fines for speeding to the point where the 80s club just can’t justify the risk or the cost of the fines any longer?

It’s the same with guns. By not adequately enforcing, or punishing violation of current gun laws, the government, through the courts is subsidizing gun violence, and in so doing is socializing the costs of that criminal behavior when what it should be doing is PERSONALIZING the costs. Instead of illegally restricting rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment it should be strengthening and enforcing gun laws to the point where criminals would know, and FEEL the true cost of their criminality. “Use a gun to commit a crime, go to jail for a long time”. “Do it again and you’ll live to wish you hadn’t”. And of course then you have to make prison a place to be avoided with some earnestness. Difficult, but doable.

And of course you can’t stop crazy. About the first time someone drives through a fence wreaks havoc on a crowded playground there’ll be an attempt to outlaw four wheel drive trucks because no responsible driver really needs one.

But that’s just what an average guy thinks.