The Sign Over The Door
by Eric Blair (2/28/98)

Watching the idiots on the nationally broadcast television show, Politically Incorrect, I was reminded of an original idea I had some years back.  Last Friday night, as the host, a couple of his guests (an actress, I believe, and a comedian), and the audience hooted and jeered, a politically incorrect conservative attempted to express his views.  If he was allowed to finish more than three sentences, my count was off.  The whole debacle caused me to wonder why the conservative even agreed to go on the show.  And, it reminded me of another time when the PI host and his usual majority of liberal show business bubbleheads sneered and snarled at a Catholic priest ... all of which proves that the title of the show should be "Politically Correct."
    Which is why it reminded me of The Sign Over The Door.
    This is a genuine piece of creative thinking from America's favorite flyfishing, catch-and-release intellectual.  It came about one day when a group of fellow HAMs (Amateur radio operators) were talking on the ORFN Pumpkin Ridge two-meter repeater.  They were wondering why, way back when, when there were very few cars, the roads in the state of Oregon were driveable.
    "Gas taxes paid for the roads then, and they pay for the roads, now," said one ham.  "The revenue to the highway department is directly proportional to the number of cars on the road.  If you can have good roads with ten cars, why can't you have good roads with a thousand cars?  There's a hundred times more gas tax revenue coming in!"
    That was when the brilliant concept came to me.  "I've got it!" I said.  "There's a basic scientific principle involved here. It's called The Sign Over The Door."
    Here's how I explained it to them.
    After forty years of liberalism in this country, the ghosts of Marx, Lenin and Mark Shields infuse every government and quasi-government agency in America.  We know how well North Korea and the Old Soviet Union worked, which means one was a colossal economic failure and the other still is.  But, many of us have wondered about the mechanics of the failure.  All detective stories are the same, in other words, but somehow the great authors like Christie or Doyle manage to put the stamp of their own genius on their detectives, making them eternally fascinating.
    The genius of Marx, Lenin and Sheilds, the stamp they have left on our country, can be perfectly identified and classified by The Sign Over The Door. (TSOTD)
    If it says "educational institution" over the door, you no longer have to wonder why the place turns out idiots.  Based on TSOTD, the last thing that institution would want to do is teach anybody how to think.  It would screw up their monopoly on thought!  People might come to conclusions they shouldn't come to!  No, what must be done is obvious.  This institution must teach people what to think, not how to think.
    If Peter Jennings says, "The people have a right to know the truth," you no longer have to wonder why what he presents as information is obviously left-wing propaganda. It's TSOTD!  Factual information is dangerous for the rubes in flyover country.  Facts allow a person to make a judgment about the world around him.  No, what must be done is obvious.  This network has an obligation to describe the world in such a way that bad (read: anti-liberal) conclusions do not arise.  Only good (read: liberal) conclusions about the events of the day should be allowed.
    And, that Oregon State Highway Department?  It's TSOTD!  The people are too stupid to understand that they have no business going where they want to go when they want to go there.  It's not only sloppy organization, it's dangerous.  Some of these citizens might go somewhere to listen to the wrong ideas.  And, besides, cars represent a great danger to the natural world.  They burn fossil fuels which will kill all life on Earth by Thursday.  Yes, it is obvious that if we are to save the planet, we must concentrate the citizenry next to public transit systems.  House them in great big buildings.  Great big villages.  It takes a village.
    That is how they think, the spiritual children of Lenin, Marx and Sheilds.
    So, even when we reject their ideas, they foul up the works so that we will eventually accept their ideas.  "We told you that we should not be building all these roads," they say, while redirecting gas tax revenues to the construction of light rail, bike paths, and to political campaigns that support such things.  The roads go to hell, in part, because the money is spent elsewhere!  On exorbitant salaries, an overgrown bureaucracy, luxurious pension plans and marital benefits for people of the same sex.  (Next year, people who really love their sheep will be included in this latter program.)  I mean, thirty dollars an hour including benefits isn't much to ask for remembering which way the stop/go sign should be turned at these road work sites, and this guy has a ewe to support!  (an ewe?)
    And, that fifty million dollar computer system that didn't work?  Small glitches are to be expected.  Nobody's perfect!  And besides, a member of the Highway Department said, on the Portland (ABC) station's Town Hall, "We have accepted full responsibility for that, now can we get on with business?"
    To you and me, "accepting full responsibility" means paying for the screwup.  If those responsible for that particular screwup have paid for it out of their own pocket, I am unaware of it.
    But, now we know what that idiot from the Highway Department meant, don't we?
    Using The Sign Over The Door as our scientific theorem, we now understand that he meant the exact opposite of what he said!  He meant that the people in the Highway Department have accepted absolutely no responsibility for the fifty million dollar computer system screwup!
    "All right, Blair," you say, "good job.  You've defined it perfectly, and we're grateful that at last we don't have to just stand there and shake our heads in frustration.  At last we have a name for this condition, but so what?  What good does it do?  Your concept only identifies the problem, names it.  It doesn't fix anything at all!"
    Wrong, unwise ones!  Never, never mess with Blair!  The history of science is based on the use of understanding to manipulate the functions of the universe.  The Sign Over The Door is as capable of providing useful tools as Einstein's Relativity theory was.  Only in this case, the bomb is even more powerful!
    All we have to do is rename these institutions!  They will immediately begin doing what we want them to do.  And, if we want them to turn out really superb work, really fast, we should equip them similarly!  Using the Highway Department as an example, we'll call it the Oregon State Pothole Department.  We'll hire the world's finest pothole engineers and the most experienced pothole-making road crews.  We'll provide them with the finest, most expensive German and Japanese pothole-making equipment, then we'll turn them loose.
    The net result will be perfectly smooth roads.
    It's a concept that could work in a whole lot of areas, don't you think?
 
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