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03/20/10
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August
14, 2006 On Friday night, I went to a late show (I like to do my grocery shopping late at night when the stores aren't crowded, and seeing a movie helps me stay awake until the other shoppers are thinned out). There weren't a lot of people in the theatre - I would guess maybe 30 or 40 at most. That means there were a lot of empty seats available. Despite that fact, you can almost guess at this point that a couple looked around at all of those empty seats, and chose to sit right in front of me. As it happens, I'm not a tall person. If somebody even moderately tall sits right in front of me in a traditional-style theatre (let's hear it for stadium seating!), I can't see a giant head-shaped chunk of screen. The guy that sat in front of me on Friday night was easily over 6 feet tall. I moved - and despite not being anywhere near the capable screen-blocker that rude fellow was, I checked before I sat to be sure I wouldn't be seating myself directly in front of anybody. On Saturday afternoon, I headed out to see a matinée (afternoon shows are cheap, and given the weather we've been having all across the country in recent weeks, it's fair to say that the air conditioning was also an incentive). Once again, the showing was only sparsely attended. And you guessed it: once again, people looked right at me, saw clearly I wasn't a tall woman, and then sat directly in front of me. I moved. I managed to find a seat where I could see, but unfortunately couldn't find a seat where I could avoid hearing those same rude people who also elected to chat throughout much of the show. No matter what time of day I go to the grocery store, I only make one shopping trip a week. That means that, by the time I'm ready to check out, I've got a cart full of goods. This weekend was no exception. It was late, and I was tired. But when a young man got in line behind me carrying only an energy drink, I looked at him, looked at my full cart, and waved him ahead of me. I don't think that doing that makes me an especially nice person. I consider that sort of thing to be just common courtesy. I've seen similar situations where the person with just one or two items has to stand and wait for someone who could just as well have let him go ahead, but who was in so much of a hurry to get somewhere so important that they couldn't delay their own order even for a jug of milk or a newspaper in somebody else's hands. In fairness, I often wonder if the thought even crossed their minds to do so, or if they were so focused on themselves that it never occurred to them to do anything but take care of their own business as soon as possible. Last week, I had to call the customer service department of a service provider to discuss a problem with them. Serious mistakes had been made, and I needed their help to correct the errors. But instead of offering assistance, I was summarily advised that it was "too bad" there was a problem, and that "nothing can be done." I asked to speak with a supervisor who proceeded to tell me that it was "company policy" that they not do anything to help anyone without additional payment. Adding insult to injury, he also informed me (and though I couldn't see it, I could actually hear his nose in the air when he spoke) that I couldn't cancel the account, either, because they simply wouldn't accept the cancellation for at least 60 days. On more than a few occasions at work, I've received e-mails from people who spell my name incorrectly. Now I don't expect everybody in the world to spell my name properly before they've even met me or had much else to do with me. But when they're sending an e-mail to me at my work address - which happens to be myname@mycompany.com, making misspelling either my name or the company name pretty tough to do - the only excuse they've got is that they're too focused on themselves to notice, or to care if they do. Worse, there are a few people who have actually been gently told that they're spelling my name wrong, but who continue to spell my name wrong anyway. Deliberately rude? Probably not. But self-centered in the extreme? Yes, it seems so. I'm not telling you about these little personal incidents to get sympathy because people have been rude to me. My point is that people have been rude to me without even realizing that they've been rude to me (maybe I'm giving a few of them the benefit of the doubt, but in the main, I don't think it's intentional). And I see this happen to other people all the time, too! There's only one explanation for this kind of rudeness, and that's that people are so concerned with themselves they've got no concern or consideration to spare for others. Our personal lives would probably be much nicer if more people stopped - even for a brief moment at a time - to think just a little about other people. It certainly doesn't take a lot of extra time or hurt me in any way to be considerate in a movie theatre; making somebody feel good in the grocery store costs me nothing but a couple of extra seconds which, whatever the time of day, I can certainly afford. I'm nice to clients when they call our office, not merely because "the customer is always right," but because I appreciate good service myself. And again, it costs me next to nothing, and I can potentially gain plenty by doing so. The truth is that we could solve a lot of other problems if we were just a little less self-centered, too. In fact, most of the problems we're having with the government these days is a direct result of the "what's in it for me?" attitude so many so overtly display these days. Politicians, for example, spend much too much time considering what will get them re-elected rather than what might actually be best for their constituents. They worry about alliances and compromise accordingly instead of sticking to their principles (those politicians who still have principles, anyway). They think about their own power base and swallow anything their party leaders care to tell them just so they can continue to enjoy the lip service paid them by those same party leaders (that's one reason I consider President Bush to be in grave political danger indeed now that so many in his own party are distancing themselves from him). But in fairness, those same politicians are cajoled and manipulated by those who are also thinking only of themselves. And the end result is the entitlement-based behemoth that is today's federal government. Last week, a published interview with the US Comptroller General minced no words when he outlined the grave threat we're under as a result of those many entitlements. The picture isn't pretty: We can go bankrupt within a generation, or we can increase federal tax levels by some 200%. Actually, those two things aren't our only two options. In fact, there's a third option, and it's the one the Comptroller General himself recommends. But it would require what he calls "tough choices" including: •
Revise existing budget processes and financial reporting requirements. These bullet points are actually fairly generic, but the bottom line is simple enough. When the Comptroller General says "revise" and "restructure," what he's really saying is "spend less." This is an obvious solution, even to those of us who aren't accountants. But the hard part involves overpowering the reasoning that got us to this point in the first place, and that's what we've been talking about from the beginning: selfishness. Some people want the new and very expensive (in fact, even many in Congress didn't know just how expensive until after the deal was done) Medicare prescription drug plan. It would mean they'd get cheaper drugs, and that would be good for them. It would, however, be bad for the rest of us. Some people want the government to subsidize their housing; others their food or their farms. In fact, where these things are concerned, the word "want" is probably too weak a term. Many people have come to expect these kinds of benefits from the government as something they're eminently entitled to receive (hence the term "entitlement programs"). And the vast majority aren't going to be keen on giving them up. What we have got to convey to all of those people is that the government has no business creating and administering entitlement programs in the first place. That's not its job. Charity is the bailiwick of churches and non-profits; savings is for banks and investment firms. The payments for medical care are borne, in large part, by insurance companies, as well as via pro bono services from hospitals. And if we intend to preserve any semblance of a robust economy at all, if we want the government to be able to do those few things it's actually supposed to do (provide for a national defense, for example), we're going to have to eliminate the government as a purveyor of what is essentially charity programming. There will be those who are thinking only of themselves when they say that we can't do that, that too many people are counting on these programs for their very survival (I agree that programs can't be cut off on the instant, and that a transition period will be needed to "wean" those who truly are dependent). There are those who are making themselves feel good by claiming they're thinking only of others when they say pretty much the same thing. But it frankly doesn't matter who thinks of whom when the bottom line is quite simply that we can't afford to continue the government giveaways. Perhaps even those who are selfish enough to demand that everybody else pony up their hard-earned money so that they can continue as they have been will reconsider for a moment if they stop to think of their children. Some people suggest that having children teaches you to love unconditionally and to be selfless instead of selfish. Well, if we don't stop what we're doing and stop it very, very soon, our children and our grandchildren will be forced to deal with our failures. They'll bend and break under a cruel tax burden; they'll suffer rampant inflation, job loss, and perhaps worse. Surely most Americans aren't so selfish in the here and now that they'd trade their children's future for their own benefit today. Are they? U.S.
Comptroller General Warns the Nation of Economic Calamity The
Nation's Accountant Tells It Like It Is
Lady Liberty is a pro-freedom activist currently residing in the Midwest. More of her writings and other political and educational information is available on her web site, Lady Liberty's Constitution Clearing House. E-mail Lady Liberty at ladylibrty@ladylibrty.com. Now available:
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