Posted on 02/22/2011 3:14:37 AM PST by Scanian
Public servants who think themselves wronged by their government have been demonstrating for days in Madison, Wisconsin. Their march for fair treatment in the budget battles and contract negotiations to follow is intended to evoke sympathy, but is it merited?
Such a thing has happened before. In the summer of 1786, Captain Daniel Shays led a revolt of his fellow Revolutionary War veterans in Pennsylvania. His compatriots were losing their homes to foreclosure, after having served their country, after enduring the frost at Valley Forge, the shelling at New York, the disease and malnutrition of an ill-equipped army's eight-year campaign against the British Empire. These veterans could not pay their bills, due to the default of their previous employers: the governments of the United States had, in many cases, never paid them a cent for their service.
Shays' Rebellion and its less famous cousins across the country owned the moral high ground in the mid-1780s. Government had mistreated its veterans, and drastic changes were needed to correct the matter. This led to the Constitutional Convention, to the reform of not only our military payment system, but of our government, and our very economic system itself, so that our government would never again make promises it could not keep.
The prayer of today's government employees is that they can claim that same sympathy, that they can convince an overtaxed public that these already well-paid public servants should be immune from the cuts in future benefits that the rest of us have had to accept as our modern economy has changed.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
It’s far easier to gin up sympathy for a fellow who actually braved the musket and cannon balls of the British, than for some droid in the DMV who makes continual smart aleck remarks at the sheeple because it’s such a boring (though nicely benefitted) job.
Wanna have some fun?
Just smart alec them right back. It shorts out their circuits-—they’re just not used to citizens who stand up for themselves.
To me, the Permitting office in any county is inhabited by the absolute worst incompetents...I used to call it the County Home for the Mentally Ill and Retarded. I’d give them the same ration of crap they gave me...it got to the point that they’d all run and hide when I strolled in.
They want passive and compliant folks. But they deserve only scorn.
It’s very simple. Public employees have a monopoly. If they charge too much or work too little, we cannot seek relief in the market. This is why they cost too much and work too little. I would support the organization of public employees if relieved of my obligation to patronize them. Privatize schools and services and let the market decide.
Well, they hire people that aspire to fill out forms for a living. And then they get full of themselves. Radar O’Riley’s on gov steroids. So you know there’s nothing backing them up.
I always took it as a form of workfare. Get the riff-raff off the streets and off the welfare rolls by giving them some dumb-dumb job where they can rise to the level of their own incompetence-—which is the lowest level of all.
I’m sorry its that way for you.
In Forsyth County GA, the folks at the DMV are fast and polite and work hard to resolve any issues. Its hard to believe they’re government employees.
Of course, I don’t think they’re unionized...
I can have more respect for a union guy who plows my street after a snowfall than I do for a grinning fascist government goon who tells me I need a $500 permit to work on my house.
Reform the retards.
I used to live not far from you in north Cobb and they weren’t too bad there. Came down to Florida in ‘92 and I haven’t found a competent county department yet.
And I’m no stickler. Just a little attentiveness to duty is all I ask.
Best line of a great article, suitable for liberal bludgeoning.
A lot of years ago, the little town I lived in had water problems, constantly putting out "boil orders" for days or even weeks at a time. The water bills, however just kept coming as usual and we were buying bottled water before it was even cool to do so.
I argued with them, to no avail, that water bills should be pro rated to take into consideration the days when the water couldn't be used, their counter argument was that it could be used, if boiled first. If I quit paying or paid a lesser amount, they would simply cut off my water. I got real creative when I paid my bills by check, writing them payable to, the "Incompetent Water Company", Morons at the Water Company" etc. They cashed every single check without a word. It didn't affect my water bill in any way but it made me feel better. That was more than 20 years ago, I no longer live there but they still are having problems with their water.
“If they charge too much or work too little, we cannot seek relief in the market.”
Ah! You are wrong...government employees are not worked too little, they are always overworked...period.
In all cases, when they need to expand the “need” for additional workers due to the overload of work, they write some ridiculous new regulation, rule or directive that generates even more paperwork to be processed and viola! More work appears and the need is immediately justified. Along with that, more workers are hired to process the load thus created.
See, it’s simple: Government workers beget more work, more work begets more government workers. In addition to that, the postal service begets more income from more mail being generated by the government and that means more postal workers. It goes on and on and on.
The worst thing is that probably over 95% of all government paperwork is totally unnecessary and 99% of it is not authorized by our Constitution.
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