The demise of public service

There was a time when America’s best and brightest – and wealthiest – went into public service out of a sense of noblesse oblige. 

Roosevelts, Rockefellers, Kennedys, Lodges, and other members of America’s landed aristocracy entered government service because they thought it was their civic duty.  They didn’t do it for money. 

They simply wanted to serve their country.  It was the right thing for the well-heeled to do. 

That was before our Federal government morphed into the self-serving entity it is now.   

And make no mistake, that’s what it’s become. 

Forget about the high and noble calling of civic duty.  The siren song of government employment today is not about serving the public interest; it’s about serving yourself with virtual bulletproof job security regardless of job performance, as long as you don’t rock the boat. 

At one time, the role of our Federal government was to insure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense.   Now it seems it spends much more time protecting and defending itself and its employees from the public they are supposed to serve. 

And as our government continues to grow and expand its employee base, and as it reaches deeper and deeper into our everyday lives, it’s also becoming further and further detached from the public it is tasked with serving.  Because of its insular nature, it doesn’t notice this contradiction. 

In essence, our government has become an entity of itself, by itself, and primarily for itself. It looks out for its own, at all costs, and is loathe to acknowledge – much less punish – any improprieties among its employees.  This often occurs with bureaucracies; ours happens to be on steroids

In effect, it’s taken on a life of its own, distinct and apart from the rest of the country.  It doesn’t have to follow the same rules as the rest of us.  Its employees don’t have to follow the laws and regulations they impose on the general population. 

It also operates within a completely separate economic system, unconstrained by supply and demand, budget concerns, or even generally accepted accounting principles.  It spends far more than it collects in taxes, prints money like the Weimar Republic, borrows billions more and thinks one solution is to raise the debt limit on its credit card so it can print and borrow even more.    

If our government were held to the same standards as it imposes on American businesses, it would be forced into bankruptcy, its remaining assets would be liquidated and distributed to its creditors, and a lot of people would probably be going to jail.

But that’s not going to happen.  Not because it shouldn’t, but because the Feds won’t let it. 

There’s a particularly dangerous group think that pervades our government that everyone in government is part of something bigger and somehow more important than anything else.  Because of that, they can’t be held to the same standards of behavior as ordinary citizens.  They believe they are the forces of righteousness who see more, know more, and therefore are entitled to more. 

While we plebeians putter along in our pedestrian lives, they are doing big things, things we can’t understand, things that are part of the “big picture” government employees alone see. 

The stuff the public finds disturbing they see as mere speed bumps.  Lois Lerner at the IRS is a perfect example.  Benghazi is another.  Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, anyone?  Solyndra?  

Federal government employees routinely escape serious punishment.  At worst, they get a paid leave of absence and get reassigned.  Try that outside of government and see what happens.

Now you may think I’m focusing mainly on the Obama Administration.  Certainly, they are part of the problem.  But so is Congress.  And so are the thousands upon thousands of Federal employees permanently ensconced in various departments and agencies throughout the government. 

There’s a pervasive attitude on the Federal level -- including among our elected officials – that the general public can’t be trusted to make intelligent decisions; intelligent defined as what they deem the right choices.   So they need to determine what foods we should eat, what fuel to put in our cars, who we should hire and how much we should pay them, where we should live, how we should get to work, what healthcare we should get, what health insurance we need and so on.

However, they’ll readily exempt themselves from all of this, because … well, they’re in the government.  So while some in Congress rail about student debt and tax cheats, it’s estimated that thousands of Federal employees – including those on Congressional staffs – have defaulted on their loans and/or owe back taxes.  And yes, that includes IRS employees.  

In the current debate over defunding or delaying ObamaCare, we learned that while the general public is being forced into it, Congress and their staffers won’t be.  They will continue to enjoy their subsidized healthcare plan.  The IRS – which will ensure that we all have “acceptable” healthcare or pay penalties – has managed to get its employees exempted as well. 

You would think conservative Republicans in Congress would see and seize on the bald-faced hypocrisy in this.  But when they were pushed on how they and their staffers got to keep their plan while the rest of us couldn’t, their response was that they were just maintaining “what all Federal employees get.”  

And there, folks, is the problem in a nutshell. 

Federal employees in general, and members of Congress and the Administration – regardless of political affiliation – believe they are entitled to special treatment.  It’s as if getting on the Federal payroll automatically enrolls you in a private club – or a street gang – which has its own rules of behavior outside the law and whose members always take care of each other, no matter what.

This is just wrong.  It’s also a major reason why there’s such a disconnect between the public and the government.  The American people don’t trust the Federal government.  There are too many instances of self-serving behavior at all levels to be ignored.    

They don’t trust Congress at all.  They don’t trust this administration to be honest with them, or to police itself.  Who can blame the public? 

They also believe government workers make too much and work too little compared to them. 

They wonder who the “non-essential personnel” are and why we have non-essential personnel on the government payroll at all. 

If fiscal hawks in Congress are really interested in cutting waste and fat – wouldn’t non-essential personnel seem to be first on the chopping block?  I mean, they are already defined as personnel that’s not really needed …  

Most of all, the tax-paying public doesn’t understand how government workers at all levels can have such a cavalier attitude toward the people paying their salaries and funding their benefits. 

That’s because many in the public still think government employees are public servants, when the reality is exactly the opposite.

More often than not, we now serve the government.  At least that seems to be the attitude of those in government – we exist as a funding mechanism and source of political currency.   

The Federal bureaucracy doesn’t really care what we think, ever.  Most Presidents appear to care when up for re-election, but actually don’t.  Congress only cares when House or Senate seats are up for grabs; even then, their interest in us is fleeting and passes as soon as the elections are over.  Then it’s back to self-serving business as usual. 

In the end, regardless of political party, what the government wants, it takes from us – our privacy, our personal liberties, the proceeds of our labors and enterprise.   

When it does this without the consent of the governed, we’re just supposed to go along.  Because it’s all for the greater good, right? 

Now I’m not preaching anarchy; I believe in the need for government.  Government can accomplish important, useful, and practical things far beyond the capabilities of individuals.  It can keep order and provide essential services to safeguard the health and well-being of its citizens.  Government can do an enormous amount of good and build things that benefit society as a whole.   

But good government needs to have high standards for integrity and honesty at all levels.  It needs to  remember that it exists only to serve the needs of  those it governs, and not just itself.   

I’m not so sure we have a government like that right now.     

Occupy D.C.

It’s time we all faced the fact that our Federal government is broken. 

Despite the best intentions of the nation’s founders, we’ve managed to screw it up. 

Congress has become a parliament of whores, only interested in maintaining power and position.  The Presidency has devolved from using its bully pulpit to lead, to just being a bully.  Even the Supreme Court has been compromised through a confirmation process that puts a higher value on ideology than proficiency or objectivity.      

Many in government now consider the Constitution an anachronism that can’t be expected to keep pace with changing social mores and trends in a complex, modern society.  So they ignore it. 

A free and unfettered press once could be counted on as an objective watchdog to expose government malfeasance and corruption.  That’s why it’s afforded such protections under the Constitution.  However, while the press remains free and unfettered, it’s now more lapdog to a particular perspective than objective watchdog. 

Without any hard and fast rules, and no checks and balances, everything’s in free fall. 

Instead of a nation of laws, governed in turn by the Constitution, we’ve become a Darwinian society where survival of the fittest has morphed into survival of the most politically connected. 

Who you know and what power you have over them is most important. 

Corporations, Wall Street, special interest groups, and all their respective lobbyists control what happens in Congress and the Presidency.  They control what laws get passed or killed, and what regulations are enacted.  They are willing to pay for that control. 

Mao said political power grows from the barrel of a gun; in America political power grows from the barrel of a Mont Blanc pen signing a big campaign check.   

Big campaign checks seduce both Republicans and Democrats equally, regardless of source.  It makes no difference if the check – or another service of equal value – is from George Soros, the Koch brothers, Goldman Sachs, GE, the AFL-CIO, SEIU, or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  The contributor is buying a seat at the table and a voice in policy decisions, with the clear expectation that the greater the value of their contribution, the more powerful their voice.   

Campaign finance reform to reduce this influence is a joke.  Every time someone brings up a new plan, someone else figures out a workaround to keep the corruption flowing.  Plus, politicians don’t really want to end big-money politics anyway.  They’re never going to come up with legislation to minimize the power of money in politics any more than they will pass laws limiting their own terms.    

This helps to make the two-party system irrelevant.  Neither the Republican nor Democrat Party stands for much anymore.  The establishment-types that run each pretend there are differences between the two parties, but there really aren’t. 

Both national parties seek the same thing – control over who among big campaign contributors gets rewarded and who gets punished.  Those who get rewarded are counted on to contribute more money.  Likewise, those who get punished can be counted on to contribute more money to reverse their fortunes.  It’s a win/win for politicians. 

So where do we – the ordinary folks in the middle – fit in all this? 

I mean, we’re the ones paying all the bills with our taxes.  We’re the ones who suffer the consequences of stupid fiscal and economic policies.  We’re the ones who have to pick up the tab in higher prices for some special treatment or protection given to some legislator’s constituent.

Where do we fit?  Honestly, we don’t.  We don’t have a voice.  

Big corporations, big unions, and big special interest groups are calling all the shots.    

Forget Mr. Smith goes to Washington; almost nobody in either party is willing to stand up to them and do what’s right for the rest of us. 

Establishment Republicans and Democrats like the status quo.  They do everything in their power – including forming unholy alliances with each other behind the scenes – to maintain the status quo.  The media for now also likes the status quo.   

So how do we change things?  How do we get the power back? 

There needs to be a revolution.  We need to overthrow the government we have now.  I think most of us realize that; we just differ on how to do it. 

I propose that as a first step we re-elect no one to the House or Senate who opposes legislation calling for no more than one term for a Senator and two terms for a House member.

I’m sure one of the Tea Party freshmen would be happy to introduce that legislation.  The threat of being defeated in the general election is primarily to pressure the old guard of both parties to give it up and stop fighting term limits.   

Six years as a Senator and four years as a House member is long enough.  These people need to get real jobs and see what it’s like in the real world. 

Concurrently, we need to start pressing for a Constitutional Convention (Article V) through state legislatures with the goal of codifying those term limits on the Federal level.  This is the way to go because it’s the only way to bypass Congress to get a Constitutional Amendment considered.  You need two-thirds of all state legislatures in agreement.  And it will take a long time. 

While we’re leaning on state legislatures, let’s push through open primaries for House and Senate seats.  California has already done this as an experiment.  There would be only one unified primary for each seat where any registered voter could vote for the candidate of his or her choice, regardless of party affiliation.  The top two popular vote winners – regardless of party – would face off in the general election.  

Maybe we’d finally get qualified and more rational men and women in office based on their appeal to a broader spectrum of voters in their districts, rather than to narrow interest nut jobs.

This is how I’d start.  We need to shake the foundations.  Government needs to fear the people, not the other way around.  Senators and Representatives need to represent the interests of their constituents, not just themselves.

And the best way to start is to make sure Senators and Representatives start realizing they have part-time jobs, not full-fledged government careers for life. 

Eventually I’d like to see a viable alternative to the current Republican and Democrat parties.  

Maybe a very radical party that would promise to uphold the Constitution of the United States and actually do that if elected. 

A party that might – just might – roll back our government to its enumerated powers. 

In the meantime, I’d settle for getting rid of all the deadwood and shameless whores in office now. 

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right …

Well you couldn’t ask for more political entertainment than we’ve seen in the past couple of weeks. 

And to think it’s an off year for elections. 

Normally, you don’t get these kinds of yuks outside of primary season.  You know, when the loons on the left and right come out to play.

The lefties promise to take from the rich to give everything to everybody who isn’t rich, except those things they’ve decided aren’t good for you.  The righties promise to preserve your right to things the left has decided aren’t good for you, and to stop the left from taking stuff from you to give to others.

That’s pretty much the essence of Democrat and Republican positions.   

From there it gets more entertaining. 

The lefties accuse the right of being bigoted, misogynist, neo-Nazi, science-denying, religious fanatics – and all-around party poopers – who want to keep blacks in chains, keep women barefoot and pregnant, deport all illegal immigrants, and turn back the clock to the 1950’s. 

The righties accuse the left of being amoral godless Commies intent on shredding the Constitution and Bill of Rights, while using NPR and public schools as propaganda vehicles for promoting promiscuity, the breakup of the traditional family, and the destruction of the American work ethic and value system. 

Wow.  Some fun, eh? 

And Americans wonder why we can’t just get along.  Go figure. 

Anyway, that’s what we have to look forward to. 

But looking back to the past couple of weeks is fun, too.

Would we or wouldn’t we attack Syria?  Nobody knew – especially Obama.  That is, until a chance off-the-cuff comment by Kerry got picked up by the Russians who turned it into a proposal. 

Before that, Obama – who said earlier that Assad using chemical weapons would cross a red line, and then denied he ever set a red line – waffled between hitting Assad hard, hitting Assad maybe not so hard, and maybe not hitting Assad at all.  Maybe just talking to Assad in a strong voice with some finger wagging.   Maybe just making a mean face at him.  Who knows? 

Obama didn’t; he seemed to be waiting for something else to happen.  But public opinion remained opposed to getting involved in Syria at all.  His minions were having no luck changing public opinion on the matter. Then the Brits turned down his request for their support.

You know as an American President you’re really screwed when the Brits turn you down. 

So who was left?  Military heavyweights like Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Lichtenstein?   And it wasn’t certain any of them would be willing to send their one and only soldier into harm’s way on our behalf.   France said they might come along, but who can depend on the French? 

Along this convoluted path Obama did the unthinkable: He asked for Congressional approval.  And that’s when the real fun began. 

His supporters in and out of Congress had been pushing for unilateral action by Obama; they wanted him to hit Assad hard.  (Now these were the same people who went absolutely bat-shit crazy when GWB launched the attacks on Iraq with Congressional approval.) 

They were royally pissed when Obama did what GWB did.   Huh? 

That led to magic moments where Obama’s biggest fans were attacking him for not using his Presidential authority to drop Tomahawk missiles on people we only thought had used chemical weapons.  (Even now, nobody knows for sure who used the chemical weapons.) 

So as not to let Democrats corner the market on hypocrisy, Republicans who normally support the use of military force by any President to punish bad guys around the world suddenly became pacifists.   An odd coalition of Tea Party Republicans and far-left Democrats started to coalesce in opposition to doing anything on Syria. 

McCain – continuing his charge headfirst toward permanent irrelevancy – wanted to bomb the crap out of Assad so there would be regime change in Syria.  He spoke of the Syrian opposition as the good guys, moderates, because, well … he’d met with them.  He dismissed reports that Al Qaeda and jihadists were heavily involved in the Syrian opposition.  

I guess old John was asleep when we armed and trained the mujahidin in Afghanistan to fight the Russians, only to end up fighting the now well-trained and well-armed mujahidin ourselves after the Russians left.  Or maybe he dozed off when the rebels we supported during the “Arab Spring” turned out to be oddly similar to the jihadists who wanted to kill all Americans. 

Anyway, Congress was a complete cluster, as always. 

When it looked like Congress was going to defeat his request for authorization, Obama dispatched Kerry – like Colin Powell for GWB – to make the case before Congress that Assad had chemical weapons, and that Assad had used them on his own people.

Kerry gave perhaps the speech of his life. 

All along the Russians said Assad had no chemical weapons.  Assad said he had no chemical weapons.  Then Kerry made his offhand remark  that one way to avoid being attacked would be for Assad to give up his chemical weapons to a third party – but Assad would never do that. 

The Russians pounced on the idea.  All of a sudden Assad found the chemical weapons he didn’t have and agreed to turn those weapons he didn’t have over a neutral third party.

Obama first discounted the idea.  Kerry discounted the idea – even though it was his. 

But then, the light went on for Obama.  He pulled back his request for Congressional approval, tossing Nancy, Harry and of course Kerry under the bus, while he awaited more details from the Russians. 

The Russians, for God’s sake.   

Obama’s relying on the Russians to pull his bacon out of the fire.  That’s rich.

Meanwhile, Obama goes on TV and in a rambling, incoherent monologue confirms for the nation and the world that he’s a complete buffoon.  He’s way over his head and totally baffled about what he should do, so he plays the “baffle them with bullshit” gambit 

Putin’s laughing his ass off and openly mocks Obama.  Which is justified. 

So here’s the net/net.  Assad gets 6 months to turn over the chemical weapons he doesn’t have.  This also means that he stays in power, and although the media doesn’t want to cover this, he’s winning against the insurgents.  The insurgents are pissed at us because they hoped we’d come in on their side in a big way; instead, the CIA is supplying them with small arms – rifles, pistols and ammo by some reports – which aren’t that effective against Assad’s tanks and helicopter gunships. 

Assad wins. Russia wins. U.S. prestige and believability takes yet another hit. 

Obama will no doubt declare victory.  His toadies are already out there supporting his new mantra that Assad was so scared of Obama that he caved on his chemical weapons. 

Except that securing Assad’s chemical weapons wasn’t how this started.  It wasn’t even a primary goal.  Obama wanted to show what a tough guy he was by punishing Assad with a strong military strike. 

Obviously that’s not going to happen.  Obama will claim the moral high ground, nonetheless, and pretend that this was his plan all along.  And look how well it worked.  We didn’t cause any loss of life and we got exactly what we wanted. 

Really? 

Given that the media will push this nonsense nonstop, a lot of Americans may forget that Obama caved early on when it looked like public opinion was against intervention.  Everything after that was simply waffling, hoping something else came up to give him a clue what to do. 

That’s called decision by indecision.  That’s not how a leader leads. 

In the meantime, we’ve given the world a lot to laugh about.

Mob rule

There’s a natural tendency among Americans to think that democracy works. 

We were all brought up to believe that democracy best represents the will of the people.

It would, if everybody participated.  But not everybody does, so democracy here often reflects the will of a much smaller slice of the public – those motivated enough to be politically involved. 

However, even if everyone participated, the will of the people isn’t infallible.  Our founders knew this.  That’s why they attempted to engineer a balance of power in our government. 

The popularly elected Representatives reflected the will of the people.  Senators were selected by state legislatures to represent the interests of the states.  (This changed with the populist-inspired 17^th Amendment in 1913 which permitted direct election of Senators by popular vote.)

The President was elected not by the majority of the popular vote – which would be mob rule – but by an Electoral College.  This neat invention helped to ensure that every state would have a representative voice in the selection of a President; lesser known is that it also served as a last-ditch safety valve.   

Finally, the Supreme Court was created to be above all of this, with lifetime appointments for its members.  Its power was to interpret whether laws and regulations created by popularly-elected politicians conflicted with the Constitution of the United States. So the Supreme Court could invalidate and/or temper bad laws that, while popular, were unconstitutional. 

These were all attempts to minimize the impact of mob rule, and the tyranny of a majority empowered to take away the rights of the minority.  The founders deliberately tried to water down “pure” democracy so that the changing whims of a fickle and potentially self-serving public didn’t run roughshod over the intrinsic rights of others. 

They recognized, intuitively, that the public couldn’t always be counted on to do the right thing.  Lest we forget, slavery at one time had popular support in America, as did Prohibition, and laws against miscegenation.  Segregation didn’t end by popular vote. 

Nor could a popularly-elected Congress or President always be trusted to do the right thing. 

That why there’s a Constitution and a Bill of Rights.  Curiously, the Bill of Rights is almost exclusively about limiting what government can do.  In the eyes of the Anti-Federalists of the time, the Constitution gave too much power to a popularly-elected central government; the Bill of Rights tilted it back toward preserving individual and states’ rights.  

That’s enough of a history lesson.  The important thing to remember is that these were all carefully considered ideas designed to make us a nation of laws, not whims.  Most of all, everything was consciously engineered to hinder mob rule and especially to prevent anyone from gaining the powers of an absolute monarch. 

So where are we now? 

Despite the best efforts of the founders, we are increasingly moving toward mob rule.  And many would say that we already have a de facto monarchy. 

How did this happen? 

Well, an efficient and enduring democracy requires an informed and rational electorate. 

Candidly, the public is not that well informed.  Nor does the general public care to be; it’s too much work.  Also, politicians and the media have exacerbated the problem by dumbing down everything to a good vs. evil, black or white equation.  They’re not interested in educating the public; they realize that’s like trying to teach a pig to sing – it would waste their time and annoy the pig. 

So they take the path of least resistance.  They turn important issues into bite-size, more digestible morality plays; political soap operas where there are clearly defined heroes and villains.  Heroes are above reproach; villains are beneath contempt.  There are no gray areas – only black and white.  By design.  

Everybody talks about “low information voters.”  Truth is, most voters today fall into that category.  They might as well be getting their information from cartoons.  Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote seem to be the media’s model for political coverage, along with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. 

It’s easy to see who to root for.  One side’s clever; the other’s clueless.  That’s intentional. 

In reality, virtually none of today’s problems have simple solutions, no matter how clever one side or the other may be. 

The voting public generally doesn’t even understand the true nature and scope of the problems we face.  They don’t understand basic economics, much less domestic and global economics.  They don’t understand the debt ceiling, why inner city schools are failing, why gasoline costs what it does, or why food prices go up or down.   They’ve been conditioned to believe that somebody smarter than them has already figured this stuff out.  So they don’t need to worry about it anymore.  It’s handled. 

Politicians and the media know the public doesn’t want to be bothered with the details. So they tell the public what they want to hear, the facts be damned.  It suits politicians’ purposes better.  Because while an efficient and enduring democracy requires an informed and rational electorate, a mob doesn’t. 

Make no mistake, politicians prefer a mob. A mob is easier to inflame, manipulate and wield against opponents.  It can be used to intimidate adversaries because of its inherent volatility; it doesn’t take much to push a mob from protest to violence.  Most of all, it doesn’t care about facts; it only cares about what it feels is true.  In the hands of a demagogue it’s a powerful tool. 

It also gets media coverage, which makes a mob seem even bigger and important. 

Even the most brain-dead in Congress and the Administration know they can’t sway public opinion with facts and logic.  Much less get re-elected.  The public won’t stand for it; they want simple answers, simple solutions and someone to cheer and someone to boo.  They’re fans moved by passion and emotion, not reason and knowledge. 

Mob rule is taking over American politics.  It’s a demagogue’s dream come true. 

We’re seeing that now as the President and his administration are trying to overturn the balance of power in the government.  What he’s been unable to get through as legislation, he’s pushed through as regulations.  He’s bypassed the legislative process with Executive Orders.  He’s refused to execute the laws of the United States, as required by his oath of office, including laws he helped to create.  He’s tried to intimidate the Supreme Court.  His Administration has used the power of government agencies to punish his political adversaries and help his supporters.  And like a true demagogue, he’s demonized any opponents to his power grabs. 

In any other universe, these would be grounds for impeachment.  But Obama’s got a mob at his back.  In today's political environment, that matters.    

He’s built a base of voters largely dependent on a perpetuation of liberal Democrat policies for practically everything.  He’s managed to nearly double dependency on food stamps – even over the dramatic increases during the Bush Administration – and will soon have control over who gets healthcare, for how much, and for how long.   He’s convinced his base that he can single-handedly restore the economy, reduce foreclosures, reduce student loan debt, and soak the rich to pay for everything, if only he had unbridled authority to do whatever he wants.     

Instead of being alarmed at his near dictatorial attitude, his fans think he’s great.  That’s because he gives them whatever they want.  He exploits their prejudices against anyone who has been more successful in life than they have.  And he tells them that every problem they face is caused by someone else, not them.  His supporters are absolved of any personal responsibility. All their problems are the fault of greedy bankers and Wall Street, right-wing fanatics, soulless corporations, and others Hell-bent on keeping them poor, sick, and in debt.  

Only he – and his government – stand between his followers and the abyss. With the stakes so high, he can’t be expected to be held to rules written by a bunch of dead white guys a couple of hundred years ago.     

This is music to the ears of his supporters.  They only wish he’d do more.  They wish his power were more absolute.  They wish he didn’t have to deal with Congress or the Supreme Court at all.  In fact, they wish he could be President for Life. 

How scary is that?

That’s what happens when a mob becomes the apparent majority, primarily because they're the only ones motivated enough to vote. 

Funniest question of the day …

So the minimum-wage workers at fast-food restaurants in 50 cities are going on strike. 

Some news station posed the question: 

                Would you cross a picket line at a fast-food restaurant?

About laughed my ass off when I heard that.  Really? 

We’re about to launch an attack on Syria which could inflame Russia and much of the Middle East, Muslims are burning Christian churches in Egypt, while black teens are killing each other with wild abandon in Chicago,  and killing others because they have too much time on their hands. 

Meanwhile, the most important issue of the day is how bad do you want a Big Mac?  Are you willing to cross a picket line to get one? 

Seriously, local media sent reporters into the street to interview people on that pressing issue. 

The world’s on fire and we’re getting ready to pour more gas on it.  Do you want fries with that? 

Listen, I don’t give a rat’s patoot if every fast-food joint in the country closes today or tomorrow or forever.  Most of their food is over-priced high-calorie crap anyway. 

I don’t blame them for selling this garbage – it’s what some people want, and wolfing down a couple thousand calories at a sitting once in a while isn’t likely to kill you.  Not good for you, for sure, but not instantly fatal.  Still, if Mickey D’s is your home away from home for far more than just coffee, all the Lipitor in the world may not save you.  Your fat ass is fried, just like your food.   

I also don’t blame them for all the fat kids who grew up on Happy Meals.  Idiot parents stuffing their kids with Big Macs and Whoppers created those little porkers, not McDonald’s or Burger King. 

However, that some states allow parents to use food stamps to do this is positively criminal.

But I digress … this is about the minimum-wage workers at those places and their strike for higher wages – actually double what they make now – and that they want to unionize. 

The net/net is that I don’t care if a bunch of slackers who man the counter or drive-thru window, or even those who attain the exalted “Fry Chief” title, walk off their jobs.

I feel for older people who find this work all they can get at their age, or those who’ve suffered a setback and are just now scrambling to make ends meet.  This is an unpleasant interim gig for them. 

But I have zero compassion for young adults who think they can make a career out of flipping the basket on the fryolator when it dings.  Or refilling the condiment dispensers.   

It’s not like they’re “there” anyway.  Most of the young ones are just watching the clock waiting for their shift to end so they can do something more intellectually stimulating.  Like sending naked pix of themselves.   Maybe spouting teen-angst haiku in 140 characters or less.  Checking out who is checking them out while they see who is checking out someone else.  Or simply holing up in mom’s basement for hours of video games or online porn. 

Who can blame them?  Life is so hard.  The stress is terrible.  It’s tough to have a dead-end job at minimum wage, especially when you have loftier goals.  Like not working at all and still getting paid enough to do whatever you desire. 

That’s what they actually want.  They think a union is going to deliver that for them.  They’ll make decent bucks.  They’ll be protected from getting fired for, say, being rude to customers, or not showing up at all, or making videos of themselves tampering with the food.  And they can keep slacking along, doing the minimum, and get by into their 30s. 40s and 50s if need be.   

Good luck with that. 

There’s a reason why fast food companies – most of them franchises anyway – pay minimum wage or a little more.  The work isn’t worth more.  Honestly, a robot could do most of it.  And frankly, most franchisees aren’t making a ton of bucks unless they own a number of outlets; in many cases, the franchise owner and family members are also putting in time behind the counter to break even.   

These aren’t high-margin businesses at the store level. They don’t have any control over what they can charge for their offerings, and it’s a fiercely price-competitive marketplace.  Double their staff costs and they’ll shut down or reduce staff through increased automation.  Force unions on them and like small businesses everywhere they’ll just shut the doors.

There’s also a reason why people earn only minimum wage.  The market doesn’t value them that much.  They don’t have marketable skills desired by others willing to pay more for their services.  That’s not the market’s fault; it’s the potential employee’s fault. 

The unions and community organizers behind the strikes like to push that a lot of people making about minimum wage in fast food places have “some college.”  One article  reported that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that more than 42 percent of restaurant and fast-food employees over the age of 25 have at least some college education, including 753,000 with a bachelor's degree or higher. 

So what?  “Some college” doesn’t guarantee a better paying job, any more than a degree in some arcane subject means you’ll make a living at it.   

If your only marketable skill is pushing buttons with pictures on them and giving back the correct change the register displays to you, anyone can do that.  In fact, it doesn’t even take a human. 

Want to see your replacement?  Go to any self-checkout line in a grocery store.  That will be taking your place shortly.   It won’t whine, complain, and skip work.  It also won’t join a union. 

I’ve been watching the strike coverage online off and on during the day.  There’s 31-year-old Shantel Walker trying to live on what she makes at a Papa John’s in Manhattan.  Well, duh.  You can’t do it.  I’d have figured that by the time you’re 31 you’d have realized that.  Especially in New York City. 

So here’s a career tip for Shantel.   Get off your ass and train for or learn how to do something that pays better.  That’s your responsibility, not your current employer’s.  Oh, and move.

Next? 

Now for all of you reading this, you do realize why all this is going on, and why now, don’t you? 

Obama’s popularity is finally starting to tank.  People are getting a bit tired of the class warfare stuff, especially since the economy is still in the crapper.  Unions are losing members.  Small businesses are reacting to ObamaCare by reducing employment for hourly workers – a lot of them minimum wage – to less than 30 hours a week.  The youth are not as highly motivated to vote or get involved politically as they once were, since a lot of them still don’t have jobs and are saddled with a ton of college debt.

Then there’s the immigration debate.  And let’s be honest, a lot of people working at the bottom rungs of the fast-food and restaurant may have – shall we say – left their “documents” at home.  So a doubling of the minimum wage – or the promise of that – may be very appealing to them. 

If you’re the Democrats and the unions, what do you do?  You need something new to take to the streets.  The celebration of Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech only lasts so long, and had to share the stage with some awful black-on-white crimes.  The changes to the Voting Rights Act haven’t actually set the public on fire. 

So you need a new target. 

About 13 million people are employed in the fast-food and restaurant industry.  That’s a pretty rich target to hit.  And that’s why this is news. 

Enough is enough ...

The murder of a random man by three teens who were “bored.”

The fatal shooting of a baby in a stroller by a teen robbing the baby’s mother.

The beating death of an 88-year-old WWII vet outside a VFW club by two teens robbing him.

All this against the 50^th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech in Washington, D.C.

In that speech, Dr. King said he dreamed of a day when people would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” 

Well it’s long past time to do just that.

Let’s just drop all the pretense and political correctness and judge everyone by what they do, not why, how they were raised, their age or their race.  When you pull out a gun and kill someone who is not a threat to you, or beat a defenseless person to death, I don’t really care to know anything more about you.  Your sob story or perverted rationale is irrelevant to me, and certainly to your victim. 

You are simply a murderer.  You are someone who should be permanently removed from society, and better yet, from breathing the same oxygen as the rest of us.  If you’re old enough and callous enough to commit a murder, you’re old enough to pay for it with your own life.   

I’ve had enough of all the excuses.  I’m fed up with the revolving door on teen murderers getting a break because they are only 16, or poor, or stupid, or come from a broken home.  They crossed one of the few bright lines in our society, perhaps one of the earliest of all taboos, and knew they were doing it when they killed someone. 

These aren’t youthful mistakes; these are cold, calculated murders that send a chill up the spines of decent people everywhere. 

Breaking a window with an errant baseball is a mistake; you can always replace a window.  But killing someone you don’t know with a gun or by beating them to death in the commission of a crime or for sport?  That’s not a mistake.  You can’t replace the life you took, and frankly there’s no amount of counseling or “rehab” in juvie or real prison that will bring that life back. 

We need to treat teens who murder like a virus.  Which is what they are.  We need to stop them before they become cultural idols and infect others.  And we need to stop them before they reproduce.   

Most of all, we need to step up to the problem and ignore the handwringing and certain global outrage when we execute a few of these monsters.  Which we should do in an expedited fashion.

After all, “justice too long delayed is justice denied,” again according to Dr. King. 

In the meantime, we’ll have to listen to all the BS.  I’ve had my fill. 

I thought my head would explode when the mother of one of the teens who killed the Australian jogger blamed the “community” for the murder.  Apparently, if we’d kept her kid more entertained this might not have happened.  It’s our job to keep potential teenage killers busy so they don’t go around and shoot innocent people, right? 

I know we’ll hear the excuse for the teen that shot a baby between the eyes in front of its mother that she refused to give up her purse.  I mean, he gave her every opportunity to do the right thing – he threatened her, he threatened her baby, he even shot the mother in the leg and still she wouldn’t give it up.  She didn’t leave him any other choice but to kill her baby.   Wait for it …

I can’t imagine what the excuse will be for the teens that beat the 88-year-old vet to death while he was sitting in his car.  But rest assured there will be one.    

Now, all of these crimes involved black teens, something you probably already knew from seeing pictures on TV or online.  Less covered – except for the jogger – was that all the victims were white.   

Some people – not the black community or most of the media of course – have suggested these should be treated as hate crimes.  For the record, I’ve never been a fan of hate crimes legislation.  These laws have always appeared redundant and silly to me and more a comment on political correctness run amuck than anything else. 

Plus, they seem to be applied arbitrarily, which is not how equal protection under the law is supposed to work.   How does beating up someone because of their race, religion, gender or sexual preference make that beating somehow worse?  If you kill someone for one of those same reasons does that make that murder somehow more noteworthy than any other murder? 

As for arbitrary:  How is it that a black person killing a white person is just a regular crime, but a black person killed by a white person is automatically considered a potential hate crime? 

Trust me, if the jogger had been black and the three teens that shot him in the back were all white don’t you think Jesse and Al would be screaming racism?   If the white woman and child who were shot had been black and the shooter – who had shot someone else in a robbery 10 days earlier – had been white, what do you think they would have had to say?  And if the 88-year-old vet had been black and the two teens who beat him to death had been white ….

Well, you can bet Eric Holder and Obama would be on TV promising the full weight of the Federal government to investigate.  They wouldn’t give a damn about the age of the perpetrators.   

Instead, what do we hear?  Crickets. 

So much for “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” 

The excuses are over.  Unequal treatment under the law cannot be tolerated.  And teens of any race who commit murder should be tried as adults and if convicted executed as adults would be.

Enough is enough. 

Squirrel!

Between the umpteenth call for an “honest discussion on race” – which is never really honest nor a discussion – and the general mismanagement of the truth by the media, I’ve been stuck.

I’ve started and stopped so many pieces.  I get focused on one thing and then – damn – somebody tosses out another heaping pile of crapola masquerading as fact I just can’t resist.

Maybe that’s the plan.  If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit. 

That seems to be this Administration’s policy.  And the media plays right along.  So much bullshit is being shot in the air; it’s hard to think it’s a coincidence. 

So in an effort to break out, here are some quick hits:

Trayvon. 

I am so sick of hearing about Trayvon.  Especially from those who couldn’t be bothered with the facts, and certainly from his parents who didn’t give a rat’s ass about him until he was shot. Now he’s a “symbol.”  Okay, I’ll go with the symbol analogy if they insist.

So here’s what Trayvon symbolizes for me:

• A punk gangsta culture that glorifies bad behavior …
• A black community that only hears and sees what it wants to believe …
• A media willing to withhold facts and twist the truth to follow a narrative …
• Shameless black leaders who will do anything to keep themselves in the spotlight …
• A baseless cause célêbre for charlatans and nit-wits not interested in facts …

Look, Trayvon was no innocent youngster who was accosted and shot by a rabid racist just for being black.  He was a gangsta wannabe who picked the wrong guy to whip up on – somebody who had a gun.  Tough luck, Trayvon.  If it wasn’t George Zimmerman who punched his ticket now, it would have been someone else later on for sure.

Did he deserve to die that night?  No.  Could his death been avoided?  Sure.  He held all the cards and played a bad hand. 

Next? 

George Zimmerman.

The media had it in for him from the beginning.  NBC even got caught editing his 911 call to make him seem like a racist.  They had to invent the term “white Hispanic” to keep the race baiting angle alive. 

It was a near perfect storm for the media – black kid shot because he was black in a gated (read: “white”) community; white town watch cop wannabe with a gun exacting vigilante justice;  white police resisting charging the white town-watch guy; Obama getting involved “If I had a son …”; racism, the South, prejudice – it had it all.    

Except that was all bullshit as it turns out. 

Zimmerman was no racist.  Far from it. He tutored black kids.  He took a black girl as his date to the prom. His mother is Hispanic; his father white. He wasn’t exacting vigilante justice – he was defending himself against a younger, taller, more athletic man who was beating the crap out of him.  The reason police initially didn’t want to arrest and charge him was they had no probable cause – and as it turned out that was the right decision.    

That people were surprised when he was acquitted – despite all the judicial misconduct by the judge and prosecutors – honestly astounds me.  The fact that some were outraged at ”the injustice” of the outcome shows that some among us simply aren’t that bright. 

Unfortunately, they vote. 

Riley Cooper. 

When is a racial slur not a racial slur?  When a black person uses it against someone who isn’t black.  Or when a black person uses it in everyday conversation.   So in the Trayvon fiasco, Trayvon calling Zimmerman a “creepy ass cracker” wasn’t racist.  As a Southerner, cracker is definitely a racist term – perhaps the white equivalent of nigger.  But on the stand, a black woman friend of Trayvon’s didn’t see “creepy ass cracker” as racist. 

Fast forward to a white Riley Cooper who has had a few drinks at a Kenny Chesney concert and gets captured on somebody’s cell phone referring to a bunch of security guards as niggers.  Now had he been at a rap concert, he’d have heard the word nigger a lot – from performers.  He’s probably also heard the word used a lot by his black teammates referring to themselves or other blacks. 

But no, he was at a Kenny Chesney concert.  And now it’s a big deal. 

How will his black teammates respond?  Will they forgive him?  Will fans forgive him?  How will his career be affected? What can he do to atone properly for such offensive behavior?  

Please remember that Riley plays for the Philadelphia Eagles.  This is the team that took Michael Vick – a man who tortured and killed dogs as part of a dog-fighting business – and made him their starting quarterback when he was released from prison. 

Is calling someone a nigger as bad as killing dogs for sport?  Apparently so if you’re a white guy. 

   

Now, I’m not saying Riley should have used the word.  It was in supremely bad taste and uncalled for, and frankly as a public figure he should know better. So he did a stupid thing in the heat of the moment.  But let’s get real.  When multiple black basketball players can call somebody a faggot or worse and get a slap on the wrist and a fine, and a convicted dog killer can be a celebrated quarterback, where’s the proportionality? 

The straight poop. 

A newspaper article the other day was about how tough it is for poor women to afford disposable diapers for their kids.  Some poor women skipped changing their kids’ diapers, or rinsed and reused them to make ends meet.   

And before you ask, the reason they have to use disposable diapers is because some of them don’t have access to a laundromat.  Plus, some laundromats don’t allow people to wash diapers. 

Now of course a charity has sprung up to provide free disposable diapers to poor women – and that’s what the article was really about. 

I suspect that free disposable diapers will eventually become an entitlement.  Environmentalists will go nuts because of the landfill issues, but advocates for the poor will cheer. 

Plus it’s certainly easier and more politically correct to give away free disposable diapers than to tell poor women not to have children they can’t afford in the first place.   

On a related note:

Summer school lunch programs.

That’s not free meals for kids in summer school.  That’s free meals throughout the summer for school-age children, because their parents won’t or can’t feed them otherwise.   

Some parents have become so dependent on schools to feed their kids breakfast, lunch and in some cases dinner, they can’t imagine having to pick up part of the load when kids aren’t in school.  So they don’t.  According to news articles, even during the regular school year, teachers know to stock up on energy drinks and snack bars for Mondays and the days after holidays because a lot of their students don’t get fed at home on the weekends and holidays.

So where’s all the food stamp money going?  Not to feed peoples’ kids, apparently. 

This is simply outrageous.  But it’s a sign of the times.  Nobody wants to deal with the root cause of all this – people having children because they can, not because they can afford them financially or are prepared to take care of them. 

You’d think some brilliant person in Health & Human Services would have figured that out by now.  It’s pretty simple. 

But we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings now, do we? 

Prejudice against the poor. 

A new one from this week’s newspaper.  Seriously, there was a story about some study that showed people are disgusted by the poor and the homeless, and don’t want to have anything to do with them, even though they feel guilty about that. 

How unfair. 

Just because someone off their meds is wearing five wool overcoats in July and screaming at the sky about aliens beaming cosmic rays at them is no reason to cross the street.  Go on, walk right up to them and shake their crud-caked hand while they pee themselves and shriek invectives at you. 

After all, they’re just like you and me. 

And the poor? 

Well, there but for the grace of God … deciding to stay in school and getting a degree … not getting pregnant out of wedlock … not having a litter of kids by different baby mommas and poppas … not having a drug or alcohol problem .. and having a work ethic – well except for all that, there go you or me.

Sorry.  The Bible says the poor will always be with us.   Yet it never said we should try to increase the number of them.

However, we seem to be making it more advantageous to be poor now than at any other time.  That means fewer people are opting to take the steps to avoid being poor. 

Does that mean the poor and homeless disgust us?  No.  But it may mean that we’re all suffering a bit of donor fatigue when it comes to footing the bill for personal irresponsibility. 

That’s it for now.