One of the first things that happened to me during Army basic training in the 1960's was something called KP. Kitchen Police is the detail that had America's fighting men doing things like washing mountains of dishes, cleaning grease traps, hosing out garbage cans and helping mess sergeants prepare fabulous Army fare like mush and SOS. KP was abandoned when the military decided to go with civilian contractors for meal preparation and dispersal sometime in the 1970's. (Civilian contractors...what a concept!!)
I've been thinking a lot lately about my time in the service and the three or four times I had KP and it's not just because I still have dishpan hands.
No, KP remains etched in acid on my frontal lobe for one particular reason. My first day of KP taught me the most important fact a person can come to know about large organizations (see government) and their ability to run things. They can't! I arrived at this ultimate truism after spending an entire day pitching perfectly good roasts, hams and turkeys into a couple of massive dumpsters parked outside our company mess hall. There was nothing wrong with these items save the fact that they were "over supply" and it was a court marshall offense for a mess sergeant to be caught with any kind of supply "overage" at the end of the fiscal year. It ALL had to go. "No", we were told, it couldn't be given to a food bank or other charity. It had to "disappear"--NOW!
This was my introduction to how the government handles the details of running a big operation. They, I concluded, couldn't manage a two car funeral and in the more than forty years that have passed since my Army service I've seen nothing to change my mind. You see I HAVE dealt with the IRS and also been to the DMV.
Now we have congress handing us a big steaming pile of national health care that will make sure that every American has the proper medical attention free of charge. Well, free if you figure that you are going to be out of town when they pass the hat for the $3 trillion that its going to cost. I'm guessing that it will take a whole lot more than the "rich", as defined today, to make up the tax shortfalls that this will manifest. Get ready for higher income taxes and a national sales tax just for starters. Oh, and while you're at it, you might want to get in line for a doctor. Even if you can find one, the good ones will want cash; not some government IOU.
It is beyond my ability to understand how the same folks who hate BIG BUSINESS and BIG RELIGION are willing to trust BIG GOVERNMENT with the most important things in their lives. If you don't like big business, don't shop at WalMart. If you don't like church, watch cartoons on Sunday morning. If you don't like big government----YOU'RE SCREWED!
What the hell happened to the idea that the federal government was there to protect our borders, deliver the mail and not much else? The people who think the government has the solution for all of their problems and can fulfill all of their hopes and dreams are the same clowns who would have been eaten by bears a couple of hundred years ago.
Get ready to start filling your own teeth.
Doctors Larry, Moe and Curly are in charge now.
"Where's that change we can believe in?"
No comments:
Post a Comment