Saturday, June 25, 2011

Speechworld vs. Realworld

Here's Mark Steyn:
In Realworld, political speeches would be about closing down unnecessary federal bureaucracies, dramatically downsizing or merging others, and ending makework projects and mission creep. The culture of excess that distinguishes the hyperpower at twilight would be reviled at every turn. But instead the “hugely persuasive” orator declares that there’s nothing to worry about that even more government can’t cure. In Speechworld, “no hill is too steep, no horizon is beyond our reach.” In Realworld, that’s mainly because we’re going downhill. And the horizon is a cliff edge.
Jon Stewart noted that the topic of Obama's latest speech - the meager drawdown of a couple of surge troops from Afghanistan - was so inconsequential that he should have done a Facebook update instead.

4 comments:

Bram said...

In realworld, the private sector would be freaking out about supporting 1.8 federal civilian employees we carry on our backs. (More like 2.5 million if you include other money pits like the Postal Service, Amtrak, Freddie and Fannie)

Realworld people would be talking about how half of them could be fired tomorrow and none of us would notice. Then we would wonder if firing half the remaining ones isn't a good idea also.

ooo33sss said...

It's remarkable what doesn't upset the folks in Realworld. Losses for the Post Office and Amtrak would constitute a rounding error in the defense budget.

Forget about the intolerable tax rates that strangling their competitiveness - General Electric claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion for 2010.

But very serious Realworld people go giddy for the things that go bang blam boom.

Bram said...

Sure - A realworld executive wouldn't have have started 2 more wars this year - with nothing important at stake and nothing to gain for either.

In the realworld, we also wouldn't have 700,000 CIVILIANS working for the Department of Defense. That doesn't include the lunch ladies at Fort Dix (contractors) or the IT people who actually get things done (more contractors).

Realworld v.1 said...

In 1960, there were 760,000 CIVILIANS working in the Department of Defense.