Tax money is a never ending fountain of funding. "Never ending" is the problem.
Therefore, what is connected to the trough of public funding face intrinsic issues of accountability, relevance, and effectiveness.
As bad as business can get, generally in a capitalistic economy, the inefficient, the bloated, the ineffective, and the incompetent shrink and disappear. Funding, financing, and sales disappear. So does the product and the brand. (unless one is GM or Chrysler, or Citibank, etc.)
Government is different. Government is funded by taxes and taxes don't go away. So, over time, what does happen is government becomes less efficient, less responsive, less accountable, less relevant and less effective.
So the Texas legislature recently lowered the budgets for Texas agencies that feed at the trough of Texas taxpayers. In our agency's case, what is going to happen is that the meager services we were actually providing will go away. However, pending the renegotiating of a new contract, what will remain is a process and an unwieldy process at that. The process is simply documenting services that cannot be realistically provided but are contractually required so must be documented as being provided. (Wink! Wink!)
If that sounds confusing, you have not crossed over. If it sounds logical you have just crossed over into the world of the bureaucrat. If it is documented it happened. If it is not documented, it never happened.
So trust me, in the coming two years, the documents will show what is impractical, what is impossible, what is ridiculously unrealistic happened every day--however impractical, however impossible, however unrealistic and however ridiculous (Wink! Wink!) Because...
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Norway Grieves
Norway convulses in the face of inexpressive grief from what appears to be domestic terrorism.
My heart goes out to them, as the death toll rises in the face of a terrorist strike.
The picture is very sketchy, very tentative, and early in the unfolding drama. I think we there is a pointer.
Hate has historically motivated and driven the madness of murder. What fuels such madness? I think there is an sense of entitlement. There is also an enemy that appears to threaten to remove or destroy the entitlement. There is also the belief that powers of influence are indifferent to the danger and risks. I believe there is also a catalyst or voice or voices that drive the vulnerable to believe and to act.
I would call this the "weaponizing" of fear and hate.
My heart goes out to them, as the death toll rises in the face of a terrorist strike.
The picture is very sketchy, very tentative, and early in the unfolding drama. I think we there is a pointer.
Hate has historically motivated and driven the madness of murder. What fuels such madness? I think there is an sense of entitlement. There is also an enemy that appears to threaten to remove or destroy the entitlement. There is also the belief that powers of influence are indifferent to the danger and risks. I believe there is also a catalyst or voice or voices that drive the vulnerable to believe and to act.
I would call this the "weaponizing" of fear and hate.
Immigrants
Most civilized countries that enjoy some kind of participatory government have to deal with terrorism: from without and within.
In Norway, it appears to be from at least one person who believed that immigrants from the Middle East were destroying the Norwegian way of life.
I remember being in Norway twice and both times were extraordinary. Both times, I remember hearing concerns about the flood of immigrants whose final destination was Norway. One only had to look on a map to understand one could really not move further north. So Norway became a destination. It was so because there was a wonderful standard of living, exhaustive social services, a small population, and democracy.
Every western nation or those identified as "western" appears to face the same issues related to immigrants and for the same reasons. However, depending on the nation the "face" of the immigrants change. Their national origin may blur but the reasons for immigrating is generally economic and desperation. People really do yearn to be free and safe. For all its struggles "the West" has both large margins of safety and freedom.
And so they come. As long as the economies are decent and freedom is widespread in a world in which most live in poverty and without safety.
Perhaps the way to stop the flood of immigrants is to invest more in assisting their countries of origin to feed their populations in societies that are free and safe.
In Norway, it appears to be from at least one person who believed that immigrants from the Middle East were destroying the Norwegian way of life.
I remember being in Norway twice and both times were extraordinary. Both times, I remember hearing concerns about the flood of immigrants whose final destination was Norway. One only had to look on a map to understand one could really not move further north. So Norway became a destination. It was so because there was a wonderful standard of living, exhaustive social services, a small population, and democracy.
Every western nation or those identified as "western" appears to face the same issues related to immigrants and for the same reasons. However, depending on the nation the "face" of the immigrants change. Their national origin may blur but the reasons for immigrating is generally economic and desperation. People really do yearn to be free and safe. For all its struggles "the West" has both large margins of safety and freedom.
And so they come. As long as the economies are decent and freedom is widespread in a world in which most live in poverty and without safety.
Perhaps the way to stop the flood of immigrants is to invest more in assisting their countries of origin to feed their populations in societies that are free and safe.
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