It’s Time To Take A Stand

I spoke with a Deputy US Marshal about some enforcement issues last week and he had an interesting observation passed down to him by an older Deputy some years ago who had spent a great deal of time in Washington. He stated that, while the democrats do not campaign on a law and order platform, the government's purse strings open up during a democratic administration for federal law enforcement agencies. Conversely, while the republicans frequently campaign on law enforcement issues, they do not provide the funding to back up their promises. I believe that this is more of a fiscal issue than a social or political one but nonetheless it does provide some insight as to how the parties operate once in office.

Beginning in the Reagan administration (1987) I started administering state and federal funding. I still do. I witnessed the changes during the Clinton administration as federal dollars moved into various so called law enforcement programs but were actually earmarked for non-governmental units, not-for-profits and the like. And the discouraging part was that almost 90% of all funds dedicated to law enforcement under the Clinton administration stayed at the federal level.

Bush 43 also has made changes but this is due to the mess he made out of the Homeland Security fiasco. It will take a generation to straighten it out.

Why? Because the cops that are now all one agency more or less were indoctrinated by a system that had over 120 separate aw enforcement agencies. Each of these agencies had their own "sponsors" and"clientele" to whom they were beholden. The problem isn't the grunts who do the actual work, it's the bureaucracy that directs and supervises them. These bureaucrats aren't going anywhere soon. A complete turnover will be needed so that the new supervisors and directors who have never been influenced by the old system will now run the show. And that will take twenty years.

From what I can see, not a single bureaucrat lost his job because of the 9/11 outrage. The FBI officials who prevented the examination of the laptop belonging to terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui were actually given a prestigious award the very next year!

And this is the problem with government. It is too big to handle. It is an incredibly vast, almost invisible network of faceless man and woman. You interact with them via telephone, email and postal mail, but hardly ever face to face. And their job functions are mostly defined by administrative fiat rather than legislation. Some hardly speak English but they still make decisions affecting your life. And they do it for the most part with almost complete impunity. There are so many of them (some are here but much more are at this pdf file - look at page 13 of 311).

In March of 2002 there were over 21 million public employees in the United States (16.3 million full time), 2.7 million of them federal employees (2.4 million full time). Compare that to national employment figures for 2002 of 127.5 million people. That's 16.5% of all jobs in the country that are completely supported by tax payers! And that incompetent windbag, Al Gore, supposedly "reinvented" government by laying off 500,000 soldiers but did nothing to make the government more responsive, more accountable.

One of my favorite books is The Parliment of Whores, in which the author P.J. O'Rouke said, “Democrats are the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and then they get elected and prove it.”

According to P.J. the only branch of the government that actually does what it is supposed to do most of the time is the US military. And that's what Gore cut!

IT'S TIME TO TAKE A STAND

Thus sprake Six Meat Buffet and I kinda like what else he has to say. I'm so disgusted with government but am leery of a Ross Perot type diversion. At least let the pubbies know that they cannot win an election without their base. They should have lerned that with Bush 41 and Dole. Sometimes I wonder if what Bush 43 does is pay back for the 1992 election.