The Magna Carta may have circumscribed the power of despots, but the contemporary shopper has transcended those out-dated restrictions. This new assertion of absolute imperiousness, the anthem for every member of that vain subculture, and the credo of every hustler that panders to it, was provided by the owner of a British department store who chiseled the commandment "The Customer is Always Right .
Rather than entrepreneurship, what most jobs in that portion of the private sector dealing with the public actually demand is servility; that mock rote wherein tens of millions of automatons make pretend they worship the ground the customer walks on. This confidence game is designed to lubricate the ego from the time the one who "is always right enters until the largesse is deposited in the register. We are important when we spend.
When we realize that it is to these butt-heads that the sale on "health care must be made, it should be obvious that appeals to the "common good are worse than useless. Given a choice, what Prince, or Princess, would voluntarily relinquish the royal coach for a free transfer on the subway?
Yet, this is the choice the American public is being asked to make. The choice between "private and "public health care is a choice between "royal and "common .
Even if from a patriotic conscience a consumer should dutifully compare public facilities with private, what would they see?
Have you ever been to the Department of Transportation? Visited Small Claims Court lately? Had a hassle causing a trip to Immigration or the I.R.S.? Would you trade "private health care for what we give "our best young people at the VA? Do you like long lines, crowded and filthy waiting rooms, and the barest expense being made for your comfort?
That's what "public means in the minds of the American consumer; a being used to being fawned upon, and who believes that he or she is "always right .
As is their wont, the "stick in the mud crowd gets it completely wrong when they decry waste in the public sector. The problem is not that government wastes, it's that it doesn't waste enough. Where the rubber meets the road, and the general public comes into contact with government provided services, parsimonious efficiency insures a drab presentation. Because every penny is frugally doled out when providing for "public facilities, the "Kings in the American public quite understandably prefer to be serviced privately.
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