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Pastimes : THE SLIGHTLY MODERATED BOXING RING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (11964)	5/10/2002 1:28:13 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 21057

Sorry for the delay. I have been away. "...public agencies can be created and sustained without much justification or support from either people in general or the interested or expert member of the public." That is such crap, Tim! You invent a self serving story and you expect it to carry some argumentative weight with me? Well, it does not: Zero, zilch, nada... If you wished to make credible criticisms, you have had a dozen posts to do so. You have had a dozen posts to point to a specific department, and to specific studies which indicate untrained employees or internal corruption--or mismanagement, or fraud. You have not done so. Instead you swing both arms wildly with uncontrolled brush strokes, and you paint everything the colour of your particular prejudices. How am I to argue with your imaginary stories such as touchingly delivered in your post? If you have specific criticisms, well--so do I. But I do not have any blanket condemnation of Government, nor of workers in the public service. When a house is burning down I want the fire out--not halfway out. The cost to the community is the secondary consideration. The outcome is the first. To pretend that public agencies do not need to be justified is hogwash. Look at these agencies. Every year they must pass a detailed examination by Management and Budget as well as by the Representatives of Congress. Both sides of the House must critique them in terms of usefulness, value, and cost efficiency. Department of the Interior Department of Justice Federal Emergency Management Agency General Services Administration NASA National Science Foundation Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Personnel Management Department of Labour Department of Defense Department of Education Department of Transportation Veterans Affairs Environmental Protection Agency Department of Agriculture Department of Commerce Health and Human Services Department of Housing and Urban Development Department of the Treasury Small Business Administration Department of Energy Department of State Social Security Administration If you have particular evidence of bad employees in one of these departments you ought to complain to the appropriate authorities. If you think the agency is crap, then you should tell us so directly. Of course, if you really do believe that ALL government is crap, then I suppose I cannot quarrel with your right to say so. To say that Government workers writ large are unproductive can only be taken as a dismissive and belittling comment. It is dismissive of both persons and agencies. It impugns their sense of productiveness, usefulness, and value. It shames the meaning of their efforts, and it humiliates their dedication; as well...it insults their value and sense of belonging to community and society. Certainly, it demeans their contribution to country. And it is an outright assault on human dignity. Do you consider yourself superior to them that you should sneer at their usefulness? When someone carries a child from a burning building do you sneer that he is "unproductive"? If it is not outright hostile, it is at least thoughtless and unsavoury, IMO. Not anything to be proud of... Most of us place a pre-eminent value on freedom of person, and freedom from government interference and imposition. However, reasonable people recognize that there are many goals and needs which are shared in common by the entire society, and which need to be addressed and confronted through the common agency of government. Such essential concerns as public safety, defence of country, education of children, prevention of abject poverty and hunger, care of Veterans, and so forth...all these demand an objective and universal approach, as they define the degree to which a society is civilized, human, and worth living in. The ability to walk past the weak and the hungry is not a sign of freedom; it is a sign of impoverishment.