Cognitive Dissonance - I haz it.

[AnnieBW]

I work for the Federal Government. I was walking through the Senior Executive parking on my way in to my building this morning, and saw something that blew my little mind. An SUV with a bumper sticker saying, "Government is not the solution. Government is the problem."

On a car owned by a Senior Executive in the Federal Government. Seriously.

Now, I know that Federal employees are allowed to have opinions. But REALLY... if you're a Senior Executive - making about $130K of the taxpayers' money a year - and you think that big government is a problem... why don't you just fucking QUIT?

I wanted to write a note and put it on this schmuck's windshield, but I was running late.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Reminds me of the Postal Worker

who hates big government, but works at a government job (essentially), vet of the US Military, access to the VA... but socialized medicine, and got his home loan through the VA and big guv'ment is bad and people should not drink from the guv'ment teet.

I know...

[Alcibiades]

5. And of course he got his government job

thanks to special treatment. Veteran's preference. It's funny, but the same people who worship the military also attack government employees relentlessly, yet these same employees are themselves often vets, sometimes self-loathing government employees who hate the government, even though it has cradled them from cradle to grave.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Hubby has his preference, from 21 years in the Navy

and he does not hate government workers, But he has pointed this out to a few of his compadres. Usually it shuts them up pretty fast.

[Alcibiades]

9. Didn't mean to imply that all government employees

especially veterans, feel this way, of course. But many do. There are actually any number of free market, individualistic conservative government employees who have never worked in the private sector. If you ask them about the government spending that benefits them, such as thrift savings matching contributions, pensions or health care, they will say "But I earned it!" People who are paid entirely from tax receipts and public debt attacking both.

For some, I think there's a strange sort of projection. In the military, you get a uniform allowance, a housing allowance or on base housing, health care for your entire family, pension benefits unavailable elsewhere, and even such things as government golf courses and vacation spots. Your chaplain and doctor are both government employees, and you shop at AAFES and do your banking at some federal credit union. Your training is provided at taxpayer expense, and you may even get some educational benefits under the GI bill. If you have to move, the government pays for that, too. Even the cost of your frequent haircuts is subsidized. You retire early (and who else gets to do that?) and roll your military pension into some pension as a civilian employee. Then you retire and get Social Security, your military pension, your government pension and your thrift savings. Your kids are born at a government hospital, and when you die, your family may be eligible for a variety of benefits from the National Cemetery Administration, to include a government headstone or even a burial allowance.

I think some of these guys look at their base pay and say "What the heck? If I had not gone into the service, I could have earned a six-figure salary!" They forget that, when they joined, they were an 18-22 year old kid with no job, no education and no way to pay for an education, that their only useful skills have been acquired while in the service of the government, and that, absent their careers in the military, they would have spent their lives working at some dead-end job for 20-40k a year without the pension, health care or other benefits. In other words, it's the most comprehensive socialist system of benefits in the world.

It is an act of radical ingratitude for people who collect monthly checks from the government to rail against the size and scope of government.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. And he makes those points regularly

The reaction of some of the same when he finally decided to use his GI bill? Why are you going to them liberal schools? No, not shitting you.

[Alcibiades]

17. They have been watching Faux

And listening to Savage & the others on the radio. The irony for me is that all those radio guys are former top 40 DJs without a lick of real world experience doing anything else, yet so many defer to them as though they had a clue. The ignorant leading the ignorant.

[unblock]

8. familiarity breeds contempt

[Alcibiades]

10. Some also don't realize that things are not always better

in the private sector. I've spoken to any number of government employees on this subject, and mainly they don't have a clue that the private sector can be every bit as wasteful, stupid and inefficient as government.

[unblock]

11. and possibly more wasteful!

the biggest waste, stupidity, and inefficiencies often come from the most profitable companies for the precise reason that the outsized profitability from the part of the business that IS working well easily covers a whole lot of waste, stupidity, and inefficiencies.

and even makes the simplistic assumption that profit automatically means non-wasteful, smart, and efficient. from an economic perspective, there's often plenty of profit to be made from waste, stupidity, and inefficiencies. many fly-by-night companies are good examples, as was the pet rock craze. stupid allocation of resources, but hey, someone got rich, so that makes it good?

[Alcibiades]

18. agreed

And the business of most managers, everywhere, is to prevent work from being done.

[Dappleganger]

13. That would be my twit of a next-door neighbor...

Vet and retired from USPS, constantly whining about libs this, big gov't that. I would love to slap some sense into him.

[1955doubledie]

2. Writing a note would have been an exercise in futility

I mean, you'd be asking someone of that mindset to actually think.
:think:

[RKP5637]

3. Yeah, a note on his windshield like, "Government's not the problem, it's the republicans in

Government.":grr: :grr: :grr:

[CC]

4. Must be a bushco leftover.

Guess they are no different than the average tea-bagger on medicare. Kind of wish you could of left a note.

[krispos42]

7. This person in the government is the problem

You can't run something effectively if you hate it. It's that simple. In this person's hands the government can't be run effectively.

[glitch]

14. This is like someone I know, who has made his living selling office products to state government for

20 years, always ALWAYS voting Republican, now wanting to move to CO because CA "is broken" (no more state government to buy his products)

:crazy:

Sorry, CO. :hug:

[Toucano]

15. Here's the backstory:

Dutiful senior executive federal worker has this husband, you see.

And this husband has a ne'er do-well brother, you see.

And this ne'er do-well brother is always on the look out for a new scam to pull. His fake slip and fall at the supermarket bought him a super nice SUV recently, but that money's gone, baby, gone.

So ne'er do-well brother (brother-inlaw of our dutiful Ms. senior executive federal worker) has been watchin' the ol' teevee an' he come to hear about this fella called Glenn Beck or Blech or something like that.

Well this Glenn Beck (or Blech or whatever) from the teevee preaches the Gospel of Supply Side Jesus. Soon as our ne'er do-well brother hears this Glenn Beck (or Blech or whatever) fella talkin' about how much money people these T-party people been givin' out, he runs down to his local chapter an' signs hisself up. He thinks the T in T-party stands fer "titty" which gets him double excited. Anyway, he knows he's on to some real good new scam. They gonna' make him a seniter of the You-nited States of Amurica!

They tell him he has to put this bumpersticker on his SUV, you see. Smellin' that scam money, he does just what they say, tryin' all the while to remember what Glenn Blech (or whatever) said on the teevee. "Big gubmint", "Taxed enuff", "Gubmint the problem", and "Obama's a muslin" or an A-rab or somthin'.

The next day he's all excited about his plans to make money as a T-party candidate, that he gits up bright and early and rushes over to his brother's house to tell him all about it.

He smashes into dutiful Ms. senior executive federal worker's second hand hybrid sedan and renders it inoperative.

She has to drive HIS stupid T-party SUV to work and BAM! You witness the results when you show up for work.

It's a long and complicated process. ;-)

[femrap]

16. I have my notes already written.....

to put under the windshield wiper.... STUPID ASSHOLE. Or whatever you prefer. Seriously, I keep pen, paper, and a clipboard in the car.