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Just flew back from a conference the wife had to attend.

We now had to go through a USDA checkpoint, and then the TSA checkpoint, both x-raying our belongings...

The Germans years ago had a name for this: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeitsbeschaffungsma%C3%9Fnahme

You can’t really translate that since it takes you to something different in English.

Basically, these were measures where government created make belief jobs to keep people employed.

Today, in our case, you have every federal agency trying to expand their scope in powers, budget, and manpower. The net result is the same, lots of people with badges and titles that think they are important, get paid well, but (((if you send 75% of them home for 6 or more month because of Covid no one will ever know the difference.)))

Do you know how many terrorists the TSA has caught since their inception? Guess: A.) 7 B.) 18 C.) 0 D.) 4 Ask yourself what those $9,000,000,000 per year do for you, the cost of air travel, the convenience of air travel, and your right to privacy (warrantless searches)?

So when that very important USDA inspector finds a mango or avocado in the baggage, the real question should be, “where do you think all the mango and avocados we eat in the US come from?”

This is was where the USDA found their cause: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/newsroom/stakeholder-info/SA_By_Date/SA-2022/aphis50-medfly The 1980 fruit fly. Funny thing is, we still get the fruit fly, and the little bit of success we do have isn’t because of ANY checkpoint, rather those evil pesticides liberals want to ban. This was a huge deal in the early 1980s, and borne out of that was a massive increase in powers by the USDA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk84zBI-OJ4 But what did almost every measure they took do to help? Almost nothing. Because just like trying to stop Covid, all these measures are in net ineffective. The fly is going to buzz across that border and won’t be intimidated by some border guard with their shiny badge and important title.

Folks will not believe it and think you to be a nut, but as a retiree and having been with a federal law enforcement agency myself, I can honestly say you could get rid of 1/2 the people and still get the actual job completed the organization was created for. We simply grew over the years, with ever more ideas from senior managers offering solutions to politicians that want to show action and leadership after some crisis. After Covid, not onlu has the CDC and NIH massively grown in budget, they have also seen their scope of powers and number of personnel increase... That’s how the DEA, ATF, TSA... all came about in the first place, as some great idea to fight some problem, real or make belief. Did you know some of the first regulations by the EPA put to paper were on DDT, an enviro make belief threat. The ATF has its real origins in prohibition, but not only did they manage to survive after that was lifted, they have grown in manpower and scope by an order of magnitude.

You have to look at federal government a little bit like a private corporation that wants to grow. Only, with government that growth is at the EXPENSE of productive free enterprise. Government not only sucks money from the private sector and doesn’t really produce wealth, it actually suppresses wealth generation, since government is in the business of regulating, controlling, licensing, taxing, inspecting... all things which make it more complex, costly, and slower to conduct business.

***Government grows because the bureaucrats want to grow government. But the politicians use these agencies and departments to show action and leadership after every new crisis.***

***More often than not the actions taken are worthless measures, done just to show action for actions sake. Furthermore these crisis are usually temporary. However, the expansion in government authority/powers, budget, manpower, etc. is permanent, almost always.***