"Union's Solution is For Its Own Benefit"
You're absolutely right -- that the government should not be run for the exclusive benefit of government workers -- but that's what happens when they get taken over by the unions, for permanent, guaranteed lifetime jobs, no less.
Government work should be rotated among the entire citizenry -- rather than allowing them to become the permanent, personal entitlements of a few -- for life.
That is the inherent problem -- for which this whole country was founded upon -- this notion of lifetime entitlement to govern everybody else exclusively for their own benefit.
That is the essential problem of government anywhere, anytime -- that a few, will determine that everybody else exists only for their exclusive benefit, and that there shouldn't even exist any other organizations and entities to oppose them -- as the divine right to determine the "political correctness" for everybody else. That's just the way it is because they've said so, and they should be the only one allowed to raise funds for political campaigns and buy up all the media.
It's insidious at first, then finally becomes more apparent at times like these, that their demands take precedence over the general well-being and welfare of the society at large -- even demanding that their "market returns" should be guaranteed without risks, because everybody else only exists to serve them.
And if everybody else was as smart as them, they'd all do the same.- -- as though that was an enlightened, progressive and intelligent society and way to do government. That is its long history of failures.
Ending the Cycle of Thoughtlessness
It's unfortunate that the newspapers still think that articles that elicit the most outrage and offend the most sensibilities because they produce the most comments and contentiousness, have greater value than those that don't, because they are well-thought out, and don't perpetuate the war between the thoughtless.
It's the old metrics of thinking that just more -- is better, even if it is worse and the worst, that coarsens and undermines society and thought.
And so they publish the demagogues who ensure them of those knee-jerk responses of the left and the right (stereotyped thinking) and those who keep those arguments going -- rather than solving any real problems, which would be the unfamiliar ways and ideas that are the solutions. Those are the submissions that are eliminated (edited) because they don't repeat and reinforce what the mass media wants us to -- which are the "traditional" problems, and not the solutions.
When there are real solutions, those problems go away -- and are not perpetuated as the age-old arguments because they don't -- and create more work and the resultant jobs -- that keep these vicious cycles going, ie., "we need more teachers (funds), because the schools keep getting worse," or "we need more health care because the health and well-being keeps getting worse" -- as though that was some kind of solution, which should be obvious that it is not, but we are not allowed to entertain any other.
Why aren't there good writers and thinkers? Why not a Thomas Sowell rather than a Leonard Pitts/Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson as "spokesman for the black people?" But beyond that, Thomas Sowell is a good and thoughtful writer, rather than one perpetuating the stereotypes that blacks only think in black and white -- and not of the universal concerns like every expansive human does.
Because that wouldn't confirm and reinforce the old stereotypes and arguments -- but create a whole new light and ways of seeing human behaviors and attitudes -- that solve (eliminate) the problem.
Change is Not a Function of Time
In an instant, everything can change -- and not as we are conditioned to think, that change is a product of time. And so we come to believe that a rudimentary education takes 12 years, and a higher education, 4 more years -- and not that an education is not a function of time, but the ending of it -- when life begins all over again, with a wholly new understanding and insight.
There are always times like these, when for a few, everything they know about life, is wiped out so totally, that they have to effectively learn life all over again. For some, that is an immense tragedy, in which a few will decide not to go on-- but for most, they will adapt to the new realities, as humans have done for countless ages now.
The ending of an epoch is near, when people think that what they know of life now, will last forever, and be a permanent thing -- just as the pharaohs and the emperors of the past, desired to achieve immortality as their ultimate quest -- rather than accept, that one day, they would be no more. That is the reconciliation of life -- that allows the next generation to take over, and carry that society further, and not just repeat what they have always done before.
So the calamities and disasters are often unavoidable and even unimaginable, except in hindsight, when people with nothing better to do, will dwell on all that could have been done otherwise -- after it is too late. There is no perfect knowledge -- of what one should have done if they knew then what they know now -- as though there was no difference. What one knows then, is what they had to work with -- and could not prepare for every contingency and possibility. But that doesn't mean one should only prepare for one -- as though that is the only reality possible.
All of life is risk -- chances, and choices, with no absolute certainty, except there are always those claiming to have that perfect knowledge and wisdom, as though they knew. But all they know -- is what they know, which is what somebody told them and not the totality of what is going on in the world -- which is far more than just the arguments between the Republicans and the Democrats, the Hatfields and the McCoys, the government and everything beyond it, that a few will desire that all of life, must conform to their wishes, and their visions of a perfect world for everybody else, and what everybody else should be doing to achieve that.
That is the illusion and delusion of the mass media hoping to control all thought -- of what it is, and what it should be, and to demand, that there is nothing else, and nothing else is possible.
Why Do We Need to Guarantee Poor Teachers (Employees) Lifetime Jobs?
Lost in all the union lobbying for ever higher compensation for public service jobs, is why we should be guaranteeing any "public service" jobs at all? Serving the public is not an entitlement -- so that those who don't serve the public (well), but only their own self-interests (at the expense of the rest of the citizens), should be released at will -- to go on to pursue those interests in the greater free market.
Nobody is forced to take a government (public sector) job, with the possible exception of a military draft during wartime. So this "sacrifice" they often speak of to serve the public (which they now make a claim against), is not one at all, but having it both ways, is really a another legendary deception by the poor stable of underpaid freelance writers who are willing to say anything somebody pays them to say -- no matter how misleading, because that's what makes them "professionals," and if they serve their clients loyally, can expect ever increasing opportunities for such "promotions" (work).
The proper measure of "comparable worth," are all the factors that go into the compensation for what one does -- and doesn't have to do. All pay being equal, most college graduates would prefer not to be the janitor, but the teacher, and a few, to even be the principle instead of a classroom teacher -- because they are better suited for some positions/work than others, and not that they had to "sacrifice" being the school janitor, to teach the 3rd graders. So all these bogus arguments about "sacrifice" as being something they should be compensated for, including being the Chief Executive Officer of some leading technology company, have no basis in any reality -- and that is the reason they're teaching the 3rd grade, as the fulfillment of what they do best -- and if that doesn't prove to be true, they shouldn't be guaranteed a lifetime job doing so, and beyond that, receiving a generous pension for no longer having to go through the motions of doing something useful.
The fact of the matter is that the fair compensation for any public service job should be -- the median income for all its citizens, even regardless of occupation -- because government work doesn't require cutting edge research, development and marketing (promotion), but requires the median competency in their respective fields, of the existing options available -- provided by the free market.
Of course that is not what a lot of union workers like to think about themselves -- that in their minds they are the best in their field if they hadn't opted for the security of government work -- and that is why there is the free market to prove that fact -- and not that seniority at hanging on to the same job, is sufficient qualifications to create the next level of human actualizations and possibilities.
That is not government work, and that is not what they teach in the schools -- which in the best of schools, is what the teacher discovered themselves, and not just what some teacher told them to teach, because that was the new consensus of what everybody else had to teach (know).
That is the reason we don't pay the average the top 5%, nor the bottom 5% either -- which the creative individual, is far more likely to be -- because only a rare few will make it to the top in that way. But no society can guarantee that everybody who wishes to get to the top, should be compensated the same as those at the top -- because there just isn't enough unlimited free money to go around.
