By Larry Oscar
Government vs. private business. I often hear people talking about how divided our country is today. Many seem to be shocked at the fact that we don’t all think and believe alike. They act as though this nation has always been a party of 1960s flower children dancing in the daisies. Maybe it’s because people tend to live in their own little world.
Years ago we didn’t have the instant social media and communications that we have today. Decades ago we had fewer news reporters and even fewer commentators. It’s important for all of us to remember that the news media is a business. And as a business there is intense competition between the news organizations for the almighty advertising dollar. The news media would like for us to think that they are some noble profession that is looking out for us and has the utmost concern for our welfare.
It may come as a shock to some of you, but nothing could be further from the truth. Journalists are not some noble crusaders here to expose the evil in our society and save the world. Far from it. Having attended a university with journalism majors I can assure you that journalism has flaws just like any other profession.
For one thing journalists are not very good at rational cognitive thought processes. That is why they are typically not very good at math. They posses and overabundance of emotion, and they can quickly be drawn into a situation where emotions run high and reason follows very slowly behind. When you couple that with the competitive nature of the news business and throw in large amounts of money you have a recipe for journalistic disaster.
The result is what we find ourselves in today. The news media and the reporting of events simply cannot be trusted for absolute truth anymore. We are in a world where “fake news” is the norm and one has to work to uncover the truth.
Government, by its nature, should have everyone skeptical of its motivation. The saying “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” is a long standing joke that unfortunately says a lot about our government today. Business and government run very differently. Governments should run more like a business and indeed governments will be forced too. As government over spends, which is the nature of all governments, it will be forced to change as sources of funds are depleted.
It has happened in every society throughout history. There are those among us that think that businesses are “brutal” and corporations are evil. This mentality is very close to what we see from the media today. They have a fundamental misunderstanding of life.
Recently we observed the President fire the Director of the FBI James Comey. The media and the left wing lost it. They ranted and demanded to know why Comey was fired. The truth is business runs very different from government. In business you are not guaranteed a job for life. Your job security depends on how well your boss likes the job you are doing and your boss can fire you without giving you a single reason.
Take a look at what happened to Tony Romo the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. Believe it or not professional football is a business. It’s a big business. And Tony Romo didn’t do anything wrong. He lost his job simply because the management of the Dallas Cowboys thought that somebody else could do Tony Romo’s job better. Can you imagine if these government workers were treated like Tony Romo? After all they think they have a right to their job and nobody can fire them without a good cause. And in some cases not even then.
What would our government schools be like if you could fire a math teacher simply because the management found somebody who could teach math better? It is not wrong to fire someone and replace them with a better employee. That is called improving your business, and if our government schools worked to improve their business we wouldn’t have such a poor quality school system today.
The media and many in government jobs need a good dose of the realities of capitalism. Nobody has a right to their job. You are in a position of employment at the discretion of the management. You had better work to the best of your ability or you may just find yourself being replaced and looking for work with Tony Romo.
There are some new sheriffs turning up in the halls of government these days. The government workers should be treated just like the rest of us who pay their salary. They are not anything special. It’s only fair. There is however a bright side to journalism majors. All of the girls in school that were majoring in journalism were good in bed…so I’m told!