Black unemployment and Government waste

This post got me thinking about unemployment while I was reading the comments. While I'm all for helping people in need, I really don't think the government ought to be doing it. No honest person can say the U.S. government is especially good at managing domestic affairs. It seems that every time they create another department and cabinet position to respond to every little need, all it ends up doing is wasting the taxpayers' (my) money and giving little if anything in return.

Case in point: Transportation Security Administration -- Last time I flew, I arrived at the checkpoint with half a dozen or so other passengers, walked right up to the belt, started unpacking my laptop and noticed that there were no fewer than thirty TSA shirts walking around doing...mostly nothing. Is this the government's idea of creating jobs? I suppose in a literal sense, yes, these people have jobs...but what are they really accomplishing? I daresay that randomly strip searching every tenth person to walk through their gate has yielded few bombs out of how many million shoes they've inspected? It's a joke, really...

I say issue every passenger a .22 cal pistol with one round upon boarding the plane, collect it when they leave, and simply do away with the TSA entirely. This would solve two problems: One, all that talented labor will be freed up to contribute to society in more productive ways, and second, NOBODY is gonna try and hijack a an airline when every passenger is armed.

The only way a plane could be commandeered then, is if every passenger were in on the hijacking. In which case at least one of them would probably have their name red-flagged when they bought their e-ticket (but seriously, is a terrorist gonna use their own name when buying a ticket?), causing an automatic full background check of every passenger. This procedure would cost practically nothing compared to the real expenses of the TSA (a one time investment of several hundred thousand pistols and maybe a couple bucks a month per airport for ammo), and would completely elliminate the terrorist threat to our skys. Sure, there are some details that would need to be figured out, like how to keep a stupid person from firing that first shot...even though he'd be quickly removed from the gene pool by the REST of the passengers, that first individual victim is still...well, not enjoying the fruits of picking a fight over the little bag of salted peanuts.

Getting back to homelessnes though, with hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens streaming into our country every year, all of them by definition homeless when they get here, how do so many of them manage to find jobs? Surely there has to be something more to homelessness than societal smearing...how many intelligent, coherent, get up and go type people do you see sleeping in the streets on a daily basis? Those who are resourceful and willing to take care of themselves will always make ends meet. Those who want everything handed to them...will keep complaining about the government as if anyone's listening. The problem is, people are, and all you hear is, "but what is the government doing for the homeless?" as they fly overhead in their $800,000 private jets with their personal makeup artist.

The problem I see with a lot of liberal arguments for government hand out programs is they're all based on compassion. Compassion in and of itself is a wonderful virtue, but it must be understood that in Washington by and large, the compassion of the voters is used and manipulated into vote buying programs to keep the politicians in power. Whenever someone objects, proponents of the spending scream "You don't care about the poor" or the homeless or whoever the target of the program is. The problem is, it's rarely true. Ironicly most of these programs backfire so badly they hurt those they are designed to "help". Another problem is, the "you don't care" argument has nothing to do with the objection, especially when the motive behind the opposition IS compassion...and a disagreement about how best to execute that compassion and gain the maximum effect.

Compassion without brains is not only useless, it gets people killed. Combine compassion with creativity and long term planning, and you can have a real winner. Also absent in the "you don't care about X" argument is the realization that there can be more than one solution to any given problem. Just because a solution has been proposed, does not mean it is the best, or even effective.