How Whining Grows Government
We have problems these days. High unemployment, high gas prices, childhood obesity, growing debt, and bath salt-fueled lunatics. How will we ever solve them all? Here’s how: Stop complaining about them.
I don’t know where and when all the complaining started, but it is not an American value. In the olden days, if someone was attacked by a mountain lion, he wouldn’t just whine, “Eek! A vicious beast! Someone please take care of this for me!” No, he’d punch that mountain lion in the face like it was a common hippie and go back to chopping wood or digging a well or stealing land from the natives or whatever frontiersmen did. Because back then, people didn’t complain about problems; instead they adhered to the wisdom of 20th century philosopher Vanilla Ice: “If there was a problem, yo, I’ll solve it.”
But at some point, whining took hold in America. Long ago, if a student in an economics class said, “The rich have so much more money than everyone else!” the professor would nod thoughtfully and then — POW! — punch him right in the face like he was a common mountain lion and say, “Quit your complaining, hippie!” The student would learn an economics lesson about how whining doesn’t help anyone and also hurts. But we don’t allow corporal punishment in schools — especially not against college students, who most need it — and whining has taken off. In fact, we now have the internet — the only system of interconnected computers that allows us to complain to the whole world at speeds hitherto unknown to man. In the past, it would have taken months to tell someone you don’t know in Mongolia that you can’t find your cellphone charger, but thanks to the Twitters, you can now do it in seconds.
What’s so bad about all this complaining? For one, when you’re whining, you’re not solving problems, you’re just being an irritating problem yourself. But the worst thing about constant complaining are the impressionable minds who hear it: politicians.
When politicians hear us complain about our problems, they try to solve them. Just look at our massive, bloated government and our ginormous national debt — that was all built by complaining. People whined about stuff, and some politicians overheard and were like, “I bet I can solve this problem and be super popular! And I know the perfect solution: a new massive bureaucracy that costs billions of dollars!” And, of course, the only thing a massive government bureaucracy has ever solved is the problem of Americans having too much time and money.
Having politicians fix problems is like having a three-year-old fix your computer with a hammer. It’s best to not get them involved at all. Like when people complained to Obama about jobs, he spent $800 billion on a “stimulus” package, and no one has any idea where that money went. People still don’t have jobs, and also the amount of debt we now have has ruined our children’s future so much that we might as well go ahead and get them face tattoos now.
Of course, people think it’s important to complain now since it’s an election year and many don’t like the incumbent, but it’s still not worth it. Because what if Romney wins and, hearing all our complaints, tries to use the government to help solve them? Maybe he’ll be smarter about it, like a really bright three-year-old who’s used hammers before. Your laptop will be in good hands.
No, we just need to never complain when a politician is in earshot — it’s too risky. And really, what do we have to complain about? Think of all the advantages we have over people in olden times. Like they used to have this thing called a “rotary phone” where you had to turn a big dial to select a number. Think of trying to text on that thing. And to look stuff up, they had to use a library. It’s like they took Wikipedia, put all of its entries into books that were spread throughout a large building, and made a big cabinet of cards for you to look through to find the location of the book you need. If you suddenly wondered who did the voice of Bumblebee in the original Transformers cartoon, it would take you hours to find the answer there. Things are way easier now, and with all that we have today, we should each be achieving things that make the moon landing look like a baking-soda-volcano science fair project. But that’s never going to happen if we’re standing around whining, waiting for someone else to fix our problems.
That’s why one of the most important American values that should be ingrained in us is that we solve things ourselves and never, ever complain when government can hear us — that’s the equivalent of feeding a Mogwai after midnight. The only way we’ll get a smaller government and get out of debt is by convincing the government that we don’t need its constant help. If you lose your job, your house burns down, and you’re surrounded by angry bears, and the government asks, “Do you need help?” you should answer, “Oh no. Minor setback. I’m fine. I saw some airports that need renaming, though. Why don’t you get on that?” Because when we solve our own problems, somewhere far away, our frontiersmen ancestors and Vanilla Ice nod in approval.
The premise of the article is ridiculous. Identifying a problem that requires attention is not “whining”. And we can agree or disagree on what constitutes a true problem. In the end, the difficulty is not the process of identifying the problem, but the philosophy of relying on the government and its minions to “solve” every perceived problem that vexes us, rather than using our own non-governmental resources. That is, the lack of American individualism and personal responsibility, which is a character trait that we exhibited and expected in the past.
I think the sarcasm escaped you…
Holy Christ you are stupid!
I never say “THEY ought to…”, since “They” is always the government and they always screw it up.
This reminds me of that Woody Allen movie “Sleeper.” After he was brainwashed in a futuristic totalitarian state, Allen was taught to be grateful for all the conveniences the state “gave” him, such as an apartment, a job, and even an electronic pet, a dog named “Rags” that left little batteries all over Allen’s carpet. Yet Allen was still living in a totalitarian state, with a dictator running every aspect of his life. Funny how our lives are looking more and more like the movies these days. If we get another four more years of Obama, I think I’ll be elegible for an electronic dog named “Rags.”
Actually, the number of government employees, on a per capita basis, has fallen since 2008 (both at the state and federal level). Government is not growing – it is shrinking.
NEWSFLASH: A lie presented as fact is not actually the truth.
Even if it’s presented on TV by the MSM?
I’ll agree that the number of actual government employees in the United States is probably less today than 2008 but I would add a few caveats:
First – When talking about “government” I assume we are including all levels of government employment and expenditure. this would be the combined totals from the federal, state and local levels.
Second – The financial costs of operating government at all three levels has not dropped off appreciably, certainly not at the same level as reduction in employment.
Third – Virtually all reductions in overall government personnel have come at the state and local levels where employees have been laid off (up to 50% in Detroit) or where services have been privatized and the employees providing those services transferred to the private vendor. This has only taken place because local and state government have a legal obligation to balance their budgets at the end of each fiscal year. No deficit spending is allowed.
Fourth – The federal government is under no such restruction and hence has not reduced it’s employee base. The ability of the the feds to cover shortfalls by continuous borrowing has (as readers of this site know with such depressing clarity) led to the fifteen or sixteen trillion in federal debt that we now enjoy.
Finally – As poltical theorists from Max Weber to James Q. Wilson have noted, governmental bureaucracies are like living things. They WANT to grow whenever possible. In a way they resemble all of those monsters from 1950′s sci-fi that start out as garden spiders and end up eating Boston. The only thing holding govenment growth in check at the state/local level is the lack of resources and (I hope) a growing awareness that this state of affairs does nto have to exist in perpetuity. The federal government is a different matter given the numerous political constituencies supporting hte largest entitlement programs.
I could not care less how many employees the state of Utah or the city of Omaha have. Federal civilian employment is way the hell up. Do we really need over 2 million feds? Over 2.6 million with Amtrak and Postal employees.
Exactly – That’s my point. The federal government exists in a fiscal never-never land where they are unaccountable to the most basic rules of budgetary responsibility. And it shows.
Of all the cities hit by the 2008 stock-market crash and recession, Washington, D.C. fared best. The housing market in D.C. and Alexandria remained stable and housing valuation remained high. There was none of the economic turmoil found in other cities because D.C. is “manufactures government” and their manufacturing capacity was still going full-blast. This is all fueled with borrowed money, a resources not available to anyone else.
The departments that are gaining employees are Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security. The others have stayed pretty steady.
Oh joy. Don’t forget the 15000 new IRS agents and the many people hired at HHS to write the regulations and rules for Obamacare. Sigh.
The mountain lion analogy is interesting. A few weeks ago a mountain lion wandered into our small town and climbed a tree in a back yard. The game and parks service was called to relocate the animal and a few hardy souls turned out to take pictures. There was no panic or whining, the mountain lion was viewed not as a danger or a problem but an interesting event. Unfortunately the only solution the 30-man government crew could come up with was to kill the animal. Twenty years ago a one-man crew could have done that, or could have chased the animal back toward its home territory 30 miles away. The 30-man crew of three year-olds burned up a big chunk of money and “solved” a temporary problem with a foolish and needless permanent fix. Your government in action.
Several years ago, I saw first hand how many government employees it takes to change a (street) light bulb. There were 4 men there at the site and 3 trucks. One man was up in the cherry picker changing the light. Two others were standing around and the other was sitting in a truck watching the guy in the cherry picker. The job should’ve only take 2 men (1 as a safety observer) and 1 truck but that’s government efficiency for you.
I used to work for one of the world’s largest service providers. Overseas, the company ran major government out-sourced services such as prisions, railroads, garbage collection and a host of other things. We sometimes talk about the UK as being a socialized government due to their health care system, but they’re much further down the road with it comes to out-sourcing government services. Why do DMV employees need to be government employees? Why do social services employees need to be government employees? Other than law enforcement and perhaps firefighters, why do governments at all levels employee so many people? The short answer is “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Sorry, but government is going broke and pensions are one of the biggest reasons why.
My father said that Mother would get upset about something and cry and carry on. He thought she wanted him to do something about it. She just wanted him to listen. He would worry about it for hours, then come to her with his solution. What? She had gotten it out of her system and gone on with things. If politicians would realize that they are the “husbands” and the whiners out here are the “wives,” they would say, as Clinton did, “I feel your pain,” and be done with it. Next problem?
So why do politicians persist to insist
That they have to do these things for you?
I guess it looks better on Election Day
When they have a list of things to do
But when they tell you all you need to do is show up for work
They’re so smart they will not let you fall
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand
… That’s the Biggest Lie of All …
Frank J. is spot-on here.
The fundamental problem we have in this nation today, is that we … in our OWN greed and laziness and lack of confidence … have chosen to forsake indivdiual responsibility, neighborly interdependence, and most significantly PERSONAL INITIATIVE in favor of empowering government to go beyond its legitimate mission and attempt to solve virtually all of OUR problems FOR us … when it simply cannot do so effectively and efficiently, in large part because of the same structural attributes that are essential to maintaining its respect for our rights.
Every other problem we are facing … the deficits and national debt, the lack of jobs, the dysfunctional health-care and educational systems, even our energy woes … are all symptoms of this fundamental problem: the “outsourcing” of our personal responsibility, authority, and resources in this manner.
And the more we grow government beyond its legitimate mission, the more we give power to the greedy, the self-serving, the politically-connected, and the rent-seeking to exploit and abuse us … even when the growth is advocated to interdict such as these.
Reagan said “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
I’ve said for a while now that this quote has a corollary of five more words, “There oughta be a law!”
And when some politician justifies their policies by saying, “it’s for the children”, understand that there is a significant probability that they are speaking of policies that will lead to time-delayed economic abuse of those same children.
In Britain they have this down to a science. The media and NGOs are funded by government or government mandate and spend their time shaming the government into providing funding for this and that and the other. A perfect circle.
While I agree that there is too much whining (by the People) and too much response by politicians to said whining, the fact is that there were bounties established on wolves, “wild catts” and black birds in our community in the early 1700′s. Who paid these bounties? The local guvment, that’s who.
Since there will always be whining, there will always be guvment. We can whine about that, too!
I seen the needless and wasteful documents required when purchasing a home. When years ago you wanted a home you bought a home. Today you must involve the plumbers, electrician, inspectors, roofers, surveyors, home protections,weather forecaster,and finally The Government whom stuck more and more requirements even in a simple transaction. Which has cost the Buyers and Seller more money for needles do it yourself, or buyer as is condition.. Because of whining, lying and mistrustful people. Everyone pays out of the nose.
Things are way easier now, and with all that we have today, we should each be achieving things that make the moon landing look like a baking-soda-volcano science fair project. But that’s never going to happen if we’re standing around whining, waiting for someone else to fix our problems.
Loved this! So true.
David
A better title would’ve been ‘You want some government cheese with that whine?’
If the post is satire, it isn’t helpful. If it is meant to be serious it is worse than unhelpful, it’s LIBERAL Propaganda! Liberals are constantly telling us to shut-up! The premise that there are no legitimate problems that only government can solve, is as bogus as the opposite, that only government can solve problems. The truth is we have the government the majority of voters deserves. We must change the majority.
FREEDOM HITS THE ROAD: Matt Kibbe is the President and CEO of FreedomWorks. …………………. Citizens are putting policy first, not personality or political party. It’s not about finding the perfect candidate; it’s about growing a constituency of engaged citizens who will create the incentives for politicians to make the right votes. This means holding politicians accountable when they’re wrong, but also supporting them when they’re right…………..
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/freedom-hits-the-road/
Don’t pick on Vanilla Ice – he’s re-made himself into an entrepreneur furniture builder/recycler:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/vanilla-ice-turns-trash-treasure-budget-17043542
Political Math: Obama’s Record on Private Sector Jobs is really good and much better than President Bush’s record if you believe the economic and statistical data that is being presented to you. I am skeptical of all politicians and the numbers they throw around so I was pleased to see someone actually take the time to analyze this data. As you’ll see in the video Obama’s explanation of his jobs record is Deception in Precision. If the only reason you are going to Vote for Obama is because you think he’s created a bunch of jobs then perhaps you’ll reevaluate that decision. My guess is most people will vote for whoever they like the most and think will do the best job, regardless of what the data shows.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQLreUCRYXM&feature=player_embedded
Oh my gosh, is Frank the funniest writer on earth? I just discovered him and suddenly the dismal future the country just chose again is at least humorous.