The Nightwatchman

The Night Watchman Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert.

Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?"

So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One was to do the studies and one was to write the reports.

So they created two positions: a time keeper and a payroll officer then hired two people.

So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $918,000 over budget, we must cut back." So they laid-off the night watchman.

Quietly, we go like sheep to slaughter. Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY during the Carter administration?

Bottom line is, we've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency, the reason for which very few people who read this can remember!

Ready?? It was very simple... and at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted on 8/04/1977, TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

AND NOW IT'S 2015 -- 38 YEARS LATER -- AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS "NECESSARY" DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR. IT HAS 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES; AND LOOK AT THE JOB IT HAS DONE!

(THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY, "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?") 38 years ago 30% of our oil consumption was foreign imports. Today 70% of our oil consumption is foreign imports.

NOW, WE HAVE TURNED OVER THE BANKING SYSTEM, HEALTH CARE, AND THE AUTO INDUSTRY TO THE SAME GOVERNMENT?

In 1907, in Italy, a suggestion was made to tear down an area in Rome near the Vatican for an expansion of public buildings. A commission was established to study the feasibility of tearing down seven historic buildings because there was public backlash against the idea because there was structural artwork as part of the defenestrations and architecture of importance in the construction these supposedly historic antique buildings. Of course, in Rome you can essentially stand anywhere and throw a rock and you'll hit a historic antique building with artistic fenestrations and architecture.

The commission held numerous public hearings and it was decided to table the issue for five years to think about it, and the commission, which was paid a yearly amount from the government for its work, would continue studying ways to save the artworks and architecture samples if it decided to approve razing the buildings.

Five years later they held hearings again. . . again tabled the issue and returned to studying the very serious concerns of the people for another ten years. At the next public hearings, no members of the public showed up. . . or the government for that matter.

In the mid 1990s when I heard about this commission, it was STILL studying tearing down these buildings and saving the art. The membership on the commission had become hereditary with father handing his membership to son or daughter or in cases where there were no progeny, to nephew or niece, or even putting it up to the highest bidder, and was now in its forth generation. The commission had regularly voted its members pay raises and had received the amounts requested from the government. It had survived over 60 Italian governmental turnovers and numerous budgets, including the fall of the monarchy, the fascists, and all of the votes of no-confidence in the various prime ministers since WWII.

The seven buildings themselves were torn down in the 1930s by Mussolini without the involvement of the public or the commission (and apparently without their knowledge) and no structural art or architecture was saved. At a later meeting of the commission, the destruction was deemed irrelevant to the purposes of the important work of the commission. . . and they continued their feasibility "studies," regularly turning in progress reports to be filed with the Italian Arts commission for filing, which obviously were never read or reviewed by anyone.

I learned about the commission because it was FINALLY being dissolved by a reform commissioner, an independently wealthy conservative, over the objections of the other commissioners who did not want to let go of their paychecks!

Well as a low level FReeper I think the vast majority of the folks on this site fully understand the the point of the article. Marxists brought unelected unaccountable burocracies into being. In time the agencies would be used by the marxists to impose their will upon us. In essence their establishment really represents the political founding of a ruling marxist aristocracy. Agencies (used loosely) such as the EPA, the IRS, the Interior Department, the Department of Education, etc. are used by the marxists (democrats) whenever they are in power to further their agenda, and their agenda is diametrically opposed to God, liberty, freedom, morality, virtue, capitalism, essentially the pillars that make America great and more importantly enable our Republic to survive. And the dims move as fast against America as low information voters allow. The money spent represents corruption and stupidity. We can fix that easily. Correcting the thinking and value systems that lead to the establishment of the agencies in the first place is much harder and will take much longer, if it can be done at all. Nice little post, iIdid enjoy it.

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