Troubling News = Good News

Understanding events sometimes means recognizing that things are not always as they seem to be.

Political turmoil is not a bad thing. Not when it results in a return to the fundamentals.

Economic turmoil is not a bad thing. Not when it results in a return to the fundamentals.

Financial turmoil is not a bad thing. Not when it results in a return to the fundamentals.

Are you beginning to get the idea?

Finding the truth; the real cause and effects; mid and long term trends is very difficult in a government/media dominated society. What you hear; what you see; what you read and what the media outlets are feeding you 24/7, if you are paying attention, may just not be even remotely close to a depiction of what is happening. We know it is hard to believe folks, but what comes out of the mouths of politicians and their sycophantic parasites in the media can be a tad propagandistic.

We will, just briefly, repeat a few of the examples we have pointed out in the past.

PBS, and its federal wet nurse teat, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is now using their federally funded time, salaries, equipment and all else to encourage its viewers, who may just have a slight bias towards these broadcasts, to lobby for more money to the teat. As we have pointed out, this is conflict of interest. It is the same as if a congressmen or a senator voted public funds for themselves to run their campaign for reelection. Would that be permissible? Would anyone see corruption in that act?

The elimination of union representation and bargaining for government employees. Some apparently think it is their RIGHT to such representation. It is not. There is no right to belong to any union. It is not a freedom or an entitlement. It can be granted by the people or it can be refused by the people. There is a civics lesson here for the entitled government employee mentality. But, alas, the entitled employee seems to have distanced themselves from basic civic lessons. We call basic civic lessons – fundamentals.

The world, or for that matter, the United States, or for that matter, any city or any state in the United States, or county or township or parish or whatever, will do just fine without public employee unions. The only really big challenge resulting from the elimination of public unions will be the need for voters anywhere to start to review the resumes of candidates more closely to determine if those who seek leadership in official positions have the training, the experience and the financial background to manage the employees in the governmental unit(s) they oversee. At this point the track record of the performance of many of these elected officials is not all that good.

So, we conclude that turmoil that will bring change is not the bad news. It is the good news. It does, however, carry a component of responsibility.

Now, for whom may it not be the good news? Well, we can approach the answer to this question in one of two ways. We can look at the big picture. Or we can be specific and name names. Which should we do?

We will name names because it is more fun.

Rahm Emanuel will not do well without public employee unions. Don’t count on him seeking to disband the public unions.

Ditto for Jerry Brown in California and for Cuomo in New York.

People like the Clintons would be lost without public employee unions. Senators like Schumer, Durbin and the nincompoop, Reid, are not really up to offering any form of leadership responsibility on their own. Ditto for McCain, Lindsey Graham and Barbara Boxer. They need unions. Unfortunately.

You’re beginning to get our drift. Managing government is not a lot different than any other management job – be it your household; the neighborhood hardware store or even a big outfit like General Motors or Wal Mart.

By the way, there is one more common thread weaving its way among these observations. Americans have been addicted to supporting individuals with legal backgrounds; some call these folk attorneys, to these official jobs. It is not a coincidence that this addiction needs rehabilitation. This year, 2011, would be a good time to introduce a 12 step program to get attorneys out of elected office and back into the workforce, if there are jobs for them. Our simple solution, call it step #1, is to outlaw any federal funds for any law student grants or loans.

So, you see, economic and political and, even, financial turmoil does not need to be “bad news.” It just means we all need to see what is going on and then recognize what needs to be done in the new environment. Politicians, bureaucrats and the media will not provide this enlightenment. That’s why we are here.

It also means that we, the people, need to raise our standards for electing people to manage government. Stop letting candidates buy your vote. Instead, make the candidate earn your vote with a resume of real performance. After all, who is really responsible for tolerating crappy politicians and gobs of overpaid, unionized government employees?