E. J. Dionne, The Washington Post

April 8, 2009

E. J. Dionne
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20071

RE: In which I prove by using scientific methods – statistical sampling and deconstruction – so beloved of modern American Liberals that the consensus it produces a la GlobalCoolingGlobalWarmingClimateChange is impenetrable to attack by “the forces of cynicism and obstruction” why universal government run health, should it be imposed by President Benito Obama, will be a train wreck of Homeric proportions.

Mr. Dionne,

I tell you now, with 100% metaphysical certitude, that the shapeless blob, a blob predicated on the simultaneous willing suspension of belief and disbelief, not to mention that both our suns would have to rise and set in the North, that universal government backed health care will not work. It is the same health care that you said but 2 days ago that only “the forces of cynicism and destruction” were keeping it from the Republic.

The only proof I need was presented to me yesterday morning in the Post Office substation on 17th Street in Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33316. It is called the Causeway Postal Store/

4 employees were on duty… or so I thought.

The first two were at the service desk.

I approached them and began to tell them what I wanted.

The first said, “I’m not working.”

The second said, “I’m not working at this facility.”

I responded in a calm, measured voice, “You’re standing behind the counter and you’re not working?”

At that point I stopped. How many postal customers, and the key word here is customers, have had this conversation? Your real world business instincts demand that you stop. If you continue you run the risk of having them, metaphorically speaking, pee in your postal potage. Your mail will go either to Kandahar or, worse, to Detroit. Plus, there is the added risk of them producing automatic weapons, weapons intercepted from their intended destination south of the Border Down Mexico Way, and tattooing your sternum with controlled bursts.

Witnessing this with an air of unbelievability was a purple and black shirted FedEx employee.

Not that it couldn’t or hadn’t happened at his employer but rather because it is understood by other employees that it hurts them. The rules that separate the wheat from the chaff in the retail business explain it simply. Those rules are:

#1 – The customer is profit.
#2 – The employee is overhead.
#3 – When in doubt repeat #1 ad infinitum. That means over and over.

The FedEx employee knows that when mediocrity and excellence are treated the same excellence will suffer. Think of it as a marketplace example of Gresham’s Law. In any business where mediocrity becomes the employer’s accepted template for performance he knows that you Damn well better have the only bat and ball in town because no one will want to play with you. Ever.

The best thing that ever happened to UPS was FedEx.

The best thing that ever happened to FedEx was when UPS went into the overnight delivery business.

The best thing that ever happens to customers is when excellence is rewarded at companies that they do business with.

I concluded my business at the main counter.

As I left the store the employee who wasn’t working and the employee who wasn’t working there were…working.

If we extrapolate the Post Office example of 4 employees being paid with only 2 earning their pay onto to the universe of health care we must that note there will be immediate betting pools on how quickly it will take for the first patient to die of cholera in an ICU unit.

Witch Doctors, Santeria, and assorted Voodoos will be supplied for the culturally diverse patients. Sterilization, a practice that leaves a huge carbon foot print, will be permitted only 3 days a week. Surgeons will be fined for not recycling scalpels. The practice of re-using sterile gloves will be encouraged. [Proctologists go last.] The IRS will settle all billing disputes. Referrals will be outsourced to the G20 Rural Enterprise Zone at the Khyber Pass.

It is passing perpetually strange that government at any level is still the object of love and adoration by modern American Liberals.



The Mayor of New Orleans couldn’t get 500 school buses filled with storm victims. Naturally, he took his family to Houston to ride out the storm. The United States couldn’t get 500 trucks filled with ice and water across the bridge into New Orleans. These same people are now supposed to be able to schedule transesophageal ecocardiograms because they “passed” a Civil Service examination, an examination burdened by goals, not quotas?

“I’ll retire to Bedlam”, a 19th Century medical allusion that is hauntingly accurate in the 21st, is still in force.

Why do I think that tomorrow’s X-ray machines will run on ethanol?

Take your left hand and your right hand. Study them closely. Try to find your ass using as many of your hands as you need.

Take your time.

Remember, there will be a test.


Sincerely,
from “the forces of cynicism and obstruction”