Friday 14 March 2008

A memo on manners ...

From the "insufferably smug" file comes this bleat from Russell Brown on what he calls "John Key's promise to hold public service staff numbers":

On one hand, I suspect Key is right, and that there are indeed instances of bloat, empty strategising and Wellington log-rolling to be found. On the other, National's use of the perjorative epithet "bureaucrat" for anyone who's not a nurse, teacher or cop is fatuous and offensive.

Fatuous!  And offensive!!  Just imagine.  Crikey, it was only a short while ago -- 1993, in fact -- that my dictionary defined bureaucrat as " a government official." And just fifteen years later the online community's leading Labour apologist is telling us the word is offensive.

This is real progress, people.  But there's still more from His Insufferable Smugness as he continues to whimper on behalf of the cardigan wearers ... 

Key seemed to be trying to use the b-word in every sentence when he talked to Havoc yesterday.

Well, it was bFM, Russell.  

As Victoria University's Bill Ryan pointed out in an interesting interview on bFM later in the day, Key also referred to 'navel-gazers' and 'paper-shufflers'.

Oh, the horror!

Like Ryan, I'm not averse to scrutiny, especially of favoured ministries. I'd just prefer it to be conducted in grown-up language.

"Grown-up language."  This plea for civility appears just a paragraph or two above a description of an online exchange as "a classic episode of pants-pooing and toy-throwing."  Grown up for sure.  Anyway, what's wrong with colourful language, for goodness sake? With calling a spade a spade?  Or with those who spend what's laughably called their working hours collecting navel lint and shuffling paper being called 'navel-gazers' and 'paper-shufflers'?

And why the hell should we respect bloody bureaucrats -- the bane of every productive person's life.  As my favourite author observes,

A businessman's success depends on his intelligence, his knowledge, his productive ability, his economic judgment—and on the voluntary agreement of all those he deals with: his customers, his suppliers, his employees, his creditors or investors.

And what does a bureaucrat's success depend on?  His political pull.

A businessman cannot force you to buy his product; if he makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences; if he fails, he takes the loss. A bureaucrat forces you to obey his decisions, whether you agree with him or not—and the more advanced the stage of a country's statism, the wider and more discretionary the powers wielded by a bureaucrat. If he makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences; if he fails, he passes the loss on to you, in the form of heavier taxes.

Bureaucrats.  Screw 'em -- and all the supporters who ride in on 'em.

PS: Here's another state-worshipper in an illiterate umbrage fit.  Funny how such a mild-mannered proposal is flushing 'em out...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brown reminds me of Ken Lay just before Enron went down the toilet. He knew it was falling apart, but he still smiled and lied to keep the stock up at least until he could cash out.

The audacity of it is almost impressive.

Anonymous said...

Are you surprised? Brown's best bloggy mates are all state-sponsored on-the-job-bloggers... Che Tibby, Hadyn Green, Jordan Carter... etc etc. Not to mention their "partners". Hardly going to piss on his own friends is he?

Anonymous said...

I can't get my head around why seemingly intelligent people like Brown can't get their head around how fucked this current government is.
But it is funny to watch them dying in a ditch over their fucked 'principals'.

Anonymous said...

It's not just the current govt: read what Roger Douglas said yesterday: its not the govt - it's the whole country.

Key promises to change the goverment - but not really to change the country.

Roger says: I've done this before, but Lange stopped me and I only got halfway: now let me finish the job!

Imagine waking up on Jan 1st, and knowing you would never have to pay income tax again.

Imagine waking up on Jan 1st, and knowing you would never have to rely on the government for healthcare ever again.

Imagine waking up on Jan 1st, and knowing that you would never have to pay for some other family's stupid, basket-weaving kids to learn about surfing at a poly, or latin at a university on your dollar!

With a National/ACT government: all this will be reality - in less that a year.

If you've got a problem with that, you don't deserve to call yourself a Kiwi

Anonymous said...

Anonymous

As muchas I'd like to wake up on January 1 and have those things occur, National as government will NEVER do it. Never. None of it. Not a bit. They are a mob of carpetbaggers and opportunists completely lacking in principle or consistentcy. A history of moral cannibalism, intellectual cowardice and pragmatic inconsistency shows how they are ACTUALLY GOING TO ACT. Why would they change anything? They are a pack of big govt bootlickers; socialists to the last man.

You know what motivates them? Getting power. that's it. Get into power. Weild power and get snouts in trough.

LGM