So your issue is that I hold the government responsible for what the governemt does (or more precisely doesn't do), and I shouldnt do that.......:suspicious:
A plan, I have a plan. Everybody gets off their lazy ass (red/blue/white/black/purple....whatever) and supports themselves, THATS MY PLAN.
If a private company does something to piss me off I stop patronizing them, thats it. Can't do that with the government THATS WHY I'M PISSED. You don't make that distinction??????
My issue is the fact that you think
your personal negative experience with the VA (when others have had positive ones, as evidenced in this very thread) and the fact that you worked on a boiler in a government building (??) makes you an authority on what the federal government is or is not doing right.
You're like every other person who likes to armchair-quarterback how the government should be run,
in a perfect world. It's easy to have an opinion without understanding federal budgets, or how cutbacks, allocations, and the inevitable
re-allocations affect a given government agency's mission and their ability to accomplish it (or not).
Perhaps the VA
would be "better run"- if they never lost X million to cuts, forcing them to leave positions vacant...or of they never lost funding for certain programs. I don't know if any of this did or didn't happen; I'm just using the agency as an example. But as someone who's been at the receiving end of one fiscal cut after another since 9/11, I can pretty much bet most agencies feel this kind of pain on
some level. Even Homeland Security has been getting cut recently, and they've traditionally had money to burn since they were created.
On top of that, you have
politicians deciding that a given government agency is good or bad based purely on how it affects their own popularity, then using the media (and a healthy dose of propaganda - usually on a level that would make Josef Goebbels proud) to rally Americans for or against it. A good example was Rand Paul demonizing the Department of the Interior and trying to gut America's wildlife protection laws, simply because Gibson Guitar - a large, well-known company in a neighboring state - decided to break some laws, then whined ever-so-loudly when they got caught and were prosecuted. He wasn't successful, but caused a lot of problems for people who were just trying to do their jobs, all to make himself more popular. And it worked.
My issue is simply that you don't know what you're talking about. You're complaining because people like to complain, especially about things they don't understand and even if they don't know how to fix them. And often because others are complaining as well. And lets add some media spin to
really make people mad. And that's about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
"Everyone get off their lazy a$$." Nice plan, but not realistic and not likely to happen with what is arguably one of the laziest populations in existence.
People always say "
if I ran my company the way they run the government, I'd be out of business..." Problem is, most businesses have extremely narrow missions. More often than not, they're about profit. The government's missions include protecting the country and it's people, enforcing laws, ensuring freedoms, collecting taxes and (hopefully) paying for services and the country's debts, etc. (
Wayyyy overgeneralized, of course).
On top of all that, though, is trying to make 300+ million people happy. People with wildly different motivations, interpretations, and levels of understanding. I think we all agree that there's no way on earth to do that. Add in the fact that we all pay taxes and don't necessarily like it and there's
reallly no way.
If the government is doing something to "pi$$ you off," it's likely because a majority of your fellow citizens favored it. Even if it were practical, you don't GET to "stop patronizing" your government for that reason. That's not how majority rule works. There are plenty of policies that I don't like, but I don't bag on the government for doing its job and implementing the will of the majority. Instead, I try to change the opinions of anyone who supports them by sharing my opposing view, albeit in a professional and non-insulting manner. The way you're talking about "liberal"- this and "liberal"-that, as if it's a dirty word, shows me that you've decided not to take that approach. There's a lot more anger than rationalism there, I think, because you don't strike me as a stupid person. While most people seem to be willing to listen to a differing point of view, most will also simply shut down and ignore you when you come at them with this kind of attitude. Imagine someone at work offering up an idea in a roomful of co-workers and someone immediately opposes it by calling them a "bleeding-heart liberal pu$$y..."
Personally, I'm neither a democrat nor a republican, but I DO consider myself "liberal" - not in the insult/political/bashing sense that's commonly all-too-frequently used, but in the fact that I consider myself willing to listen to an opposing view. Because you never know: a different way may work better. And not being a genius, maybe there's a way I haven't thought of...
I don't think you're a bad person and I think your anger/frustration is real, just like that of a lot of folks - I just think you lack some understanding of how things work.
Something else - you mention how the population has increased. My agency has less people trying to fulfill our mission than we did in the 60's. I know of several other agencies in the same boat. Sure, some agencies may have
more resources, but a lot of us have a LOT less. So anyone complaining about our level of service or efficiency or who thinks we can be "run" better should probably take that into consideration. Especially given the fact that I worked all weekend (14 hours on Saturday) to catch up on stuff which I was not allowed to do during the shutdown and I don't get overtime or any additional compensation for it.
