Top down, centrally planned, patriarchal economies always run off the cliff in some fashion, but we still cling to them. I think it is an inherent human need to have a god installed at the head of our affairs.

I have a job with a contractor working for the DOE. We have more than enough people who sit and wait to be told what to do - for $30/hour.

We are trying to deal with systems a former manager pushed which computerized a bunch of things, like data recording, haphazardly. Afflicted wih "gee-whiz disease" - the tendency to regard things that flash, and the word "digital", with awe - we are doing our job badly in many respects. Fortunately, safety bases are so far away they are only rarely approached.

When Federal authorities were given sway over the computer systems, there appeared a warning message on Windows login that was not only legally and logically wrong, but a grammatical disaster as well. Contact with the hire-based-on-merit local staff produced the comment, "There's nothing we can do. If we correct it, we fail the automated audit."

Now, think how badly you are going to be treated by 600 thousand more TSA idiots, none of whom are responsible to you.

> it is an inherent human need to
> have a god installed at the
> head of our affairs

Or to regard whoever happens to be heading our affairs as a God.* I agree with Doomy, and I think it happens because our first exposure to life is as dominated children. And as a species, our second experience in life is as a serf or powerless villager (or mere subject of that darling Prince Harry).

---

*The weirdness of this is oft expressed by almost anyone who had fools or young people in their employ. ("Dude, why are you whining? I'm not your Dad... If you're not happy flipping burgers here, then go work somewhere else. Meanwhile, you need to lay the fricking cheese slices symmetrically over the patties. Got it?")

Nobody draws Obama cartoons better than Michael Ramirez at ibdeditorials:

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/cartoons.aspx#cartoon316043196599113

I keep on wondering where those 600 000-something jobs will go to. Would they replace outside contractors offering a better service while costing less or new dead-end jobs offered on an affirmative action basis.

I might be quite negative on this but I have a hard time to see any good out of this. Arbitrary numbers without any explanation sounds too much like welfare with an excuse.

The writers of "thirtysomething" once had David Clennon observe that, "to most people, 'history' is last week's People magazine".

I expect everyone to forget Bill Clinton's boast of reducing government employment (270 thousand fewer people in the military, thank you for setting us up) in their rush to praise Mr. Obama.

The government doesn't have one, thin, real dime that it doesn't get from people.

"The government doesn't have one, thin, real dime that it doesn't get from people."

If only that were so. Don't forget that the federal gummint can print money as it pleases & then drop it from helicopters, as Milton Friedman put it.

"Reagan famously said government is not the solution, it's the problem,"

... and then turned around and tripled the national debt, thus proving himself correct.

Martin, the key word is "real". Don't miss it.

"The government doesn't have one, thin, real dime that it doesn't get from people"

Oh, it has plenty of those, and it has them before anyone else. They do own the printing and stamping presses, after all.

What people forget, though, is that it is the labor and capital of the American people who, by virtue of their industry, give that dime its value. Well, that and the IRS's ability to throw your ass in jail if you do not pay them a portion of the value you create.

I keep on wondering where those 600 000-something jobs will go to.

Didn't someone mention something about a national security force - just as well-funded and well-equipped as the military?

Well, I can't remember who actually wrote the piece I've quoted before, which is bad, because whoever it was deserves credit. (It may have been Bruce Schneir.)

But there's a lot to said for having domestic security forces operate as an armed service rather than by the TSA.

First of all, you could give demand physical fitness and, um, intellectual awareness of the personel, which doesn't seem to be happening presently.

Secondly, their years of service & benefits could be managed at least as well as those of our soldiers.

Thirdly, their (un-armed) services could offered to local communities in times of crisis (earthquake, hurricane, etc.)

Fourth, their employment concerns could be handled by martial justice instead of union grievance. (Imagine if Detroit had had that!)

Nobody likes the idea of Army types per se working in domestic American life. But if our security is really entering a new age --and if new attacks are at hand, as so many have predicted for Obama's Presidential honeymoon, including his Vice-President-- then maybe we'll have to accept more of an Israeli attitude about having soldiers at work in our travel experiences.

I'd much rather have a straightforward armed service doing domestic security than spend the money on more spy agency support.

Pls don't mock me for all the typos in the part where I was making fun of other people being stupid. OK? Just let it go.

Thanks oodles

Nobody likes the idea of Army types per se working in domestic American life.

It's not "Army types" about which I'm worried. It's power-mad petty tyrants who seem to occupy far too many civil service jobs. Spend a day at the DMV or waiting to be called for jury duty and you'll understand why I don't want armed government bureaucrats running around monitoring my e-mail and watching to catch me if I jaywalk.

But there's a lot to said for having domestic security forces operate as an armed service rather than by the TSA.

Much of the success of this domestic security force depends upon how it is implemented.

A national police force with training and Constitutional limitations on its power could work out well - depending upon how it is integrated with current local agencies. A clearinghouse agency that could coordinate and combine enforcement and investgative actions between states could lead to faster capture and conviction of multi-state criminals (especially serial killers, con men, smugglers, terrorists, etc.).

We already have the basics for a national police agency in the US Border Patrol, the FBI, the DEA, the BATF, the Secret Service, and various state police agencies. The advantage (and disadvantage) this fractured arrangement has is that the agencies spend as much time fighting each other as they do the criminals. The question is: what happens when these guys get organized?

Properly established, a US gendarmerie could end up with the decent, albeit mixed, reputation of Italy's Carabinieri. Or, perhaps, the well-regarded reputation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

A domestic army of petty tyrant bureaucrats, however, could end up becoming an instrument of oppression, like Saudi Arabia's Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice or Nazi Germany's Gestapo.

Kommisar Pelosi has already moved to shut down all voices of opposition in Congress. How much do you trust her in writing the bill authorizing such a domestic agency?

Thanks oodles

You're welcome...oodles.

Well, as you seem to suggest, we already have all the technocractic nightmares. I agree with you about the intrusions, I just got over a fight with someone here about the value of spook agencies generally.

And you're certainly right about the DMV. On casual Friday in California, they don't wear sportswear... They wear pajamas em>.

My comment was directed mostly towards airports and similar transit hubs. Today, instead of some intensely serious soldier of the El-Al type going through your luggage, we have overweight high school dropouts for whom TSA will be the final employer anyway. My point is more that if we're gonna do security at all, it should be convincingly martial.

Today, instead of some intensely serious soldier of the El-Al type going through your luggage, we have overweight high school dropouts for whom TSA will be the final employer anyway. My point is more that if we're gonna do security at all, it should be convincingly martial.

I certainly agree with you that our last line of airport defense is not very impressive. The polyester uniform pants with the zipper hanging on for dear life (credit Jerry Seinfeld) is not likely to discourage terrorists.

I'm not sure how you improve that, however. An "intensely serious soldier of the El-Al type" is most likely going to get pretty bored with luggage screening. Your "best and brightest" do not aspire to a career of poking through other people's luggage in Poughkeepsie, Ohio.

The problem is we're staffing TSA using the DMV/UAW model. Instead of automating tasks using technology and hiring a smaller number of bright, inquisitive people, we've reduced the tasks to their basic movements and hired an army of dullards to perform the tasks repititiously. High school dropouts no longer get a Union job with GM, they get a government job.

Throw in a mob of passengers who can't be bothered to read the carry-on instructions or insist the instructions don't apply to them or simply cannot figure out why they shouldn't be allowed to bring their entire household as carry-on luggage and use three or four overhead bins while the other passengers check their single overnight bag and you've got a real fun experience waiting for you at the security checkpoint.

Then again, maybe we should hire "seriously intent soldiers" for the checkpoint. A few summary executions and I might be able to get through security without having to listen to the TSA guard explain (for the fourth time) to Miss Can't-be-wrong that shoes and jackets have to go through the x-ray machine and that a purse counts as a bag for luggage purposes.

> get pretty bored with luggage
> screening. Your "best and brightest"
> do not aspire to a career of poking
> through other people's luggage

One great thing about the armed services is that the people within them are making plans for what they're going to do when it's over. The guys in the Navy, be they SEALs or potato-peelers, all talk to each other about what comes next.

TSA guys talk about Fritos.

Actually, in his January 3rd radio address, Obama said he wanted to create 3 million new jobs, at least 80% of them in the private sector. The "private sector" includes government contractors and companies working on government contracts.

Obama is actually be talking about creating 3 million government-financed jobs.

And somehow this will all be paid for with higher taxes on "the rich" and giving the "middle class" a tax cut.

Since truly "rich" people can be on a plane to a low-tax country in less time than it takes Barry to finish his radio address, by "rich" he means anyone with a job. And the tax cut? The middle class is now defined as a guy named Herb living in Dayton, Ohio.

The guys in the Navy, be they SEALs or potato-peelers, all talk to each other about what comes next.

TSA guys talk about Fritos.

Unless you're going to provide exciting work and incentives like money for college, VA housing loans, and GI Bill benefits, you're going to get people who have an inordinate fascination with processed snack foods.

About the 600,000 jobs: it's easy to create a "need".

Gustave Gilbert spoke to Hermann Goering in April 1946:

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," Gilbert pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

Goering replied, "Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Look at what Germany did in the 1930s, and then look at us. Note that if we were sitting in a cafe in Frankfurt in 1936, and I told you that in ten years Europe would lay in rubble and 35 million would be dead, you'd have me carted off to be forcibly medicated.

Every society is the most modern it has ever known. Modernity is no antidote to madness.

> Unless you're going to provide
> exciting work and incentives

Well, it feels like we're providing those things already. Today's comical, diabetic TSA guys presumably have insurance and so forth. As noted elsewhere in these comments today, the nightmare of modern finance is entitlements.

I'd rather promise a person with nothing better to do between ages 20-24 that if they just bust ass for a few years, we'll cover the cost of a good community college or trade school.

Are we talking in circles here?

(Don't answer that.)