A couple of days ago a team of city workers got together to put in a new traffic light. This project was in the vicinity of a relatively new shopping center anchored by Costco. They had barely begun when they severed the main fiber optic line that supplied AT&T’s tv, internet, and phone service to the western half of the city. The reason they were able to accomplish this task so quickly was that they had done they same job about a year ago and knew where to look for the line this time around. The line was not repaired until about 7am the following morning leaving a wake of unhappy citizens and businesses. What fate did this merry band of government repeat cord cutters suffer? None that I know of. Accordingly, they are available to break other systems that we are committed to, but which we can’t get to work properly or efficiently. In order to rid ourselves of the dross of public goods that are dragging us down like a lead lined life preserver we must destroy them while giving the appearance of trying to save them. Death by unintentional inadvertence is what we need.

First what is a public good? I’m going to borrow a bit from Gor Mkrtchian’s article on the subject. Public goods are good because they are assumed to be good. Those who espouse them ignore the people who do not benefit from them or who pay disproportionately for them. You are apt to be in favor of public goods that you don’t pay for or which appeal to to you. The true cost of such goods is impossible to know as there is no market for them with which to value them. Basically, a public good is something that some people want. These folks then force those who don’t want this good to bear part of its cost. Of course, these unwilling payers may have their own idea of what constitutes a public good which goes unmet because of the expense of funding someone else’s public good. Who’s public good is better? Someone who wants low cost carbon based fuel or another guy who wants the carbon footprint lowered? One woman’s public good is another’s public bad. I’m writing about people who are forced to pay for someone’s public good. People are always free to pay for the welfare of anyone they think deserves their help without forcing someone else to do the same.

Politicians exist to promise a cornucopia of public goods because they believe such promises will get them elected. They tend to be vague to the point of invisibility as to how to pay for these public goods. Limitless free medical care and free higher education are very popular among those seeking high level government employment. Since government is like the serial killer who cries, “Stop me before I kill again,” only its spending money, rather than committing murder, that can’t be stopped. I have a solution that will allow endless public goods without the inevitable disaster that will eventually transpire when the bill really comes due.

This where the guys who know how to cut the fiber optic line in less time than it takes to floss come in. Known in the public service trade as Walrus Team 666, there’s nothing they can’t destroy in a nonce. Their like can be found in every city and village in the 50 states and District of Columbia – especially the latter. All that’s needed is to tell each team to fix whatever public good we can’t afford – which, of course, is almost all of them.

They could start small and work their ways up. Say the monkey bars. There can’t be many public parks that still have them as they are more dangerous than Flint MI tap water, but they must exist in a few unenlightened locales that allow flag football without full body armor. Tell the Walruses to fix the simian tubes and they be gone faster than virtue.

We’re still at the warmup stage, but another trial for the Walruses could be stores, like Walmart, that are virtue signaling with the frenzied intensity of a combination semaphore operator and a ASL signer signing a Rossini patter song. What these stores, Walgreens is another, have banned is open carry on their premises. Texas has been an open carry state for several years, but I have yet to see anyone do it. The reason is simple; it’s stupid. You make yourself a target. Thus, the Ws and their like, are banning something that doesn’t happen. Why? They’re showing how woke they are while annoying the half of their customer base that prefers sleep to woke. Corporate America is trying to be as loony as the government, a high bar they’ll have to work hard to reach.

I propose to send in the Walruses all with water pistols openly tucked into their pants. The minimum wage employees charged with enforcing the no open carry policy will scatter in panic and demand a pay raise before they’ll approach someone they think has a real gun and the Ws will likely turn into Rip Van Winkle.

Now for the real stuff. Having gone through several practice runs, the Walruses will head for the DMV. Under the guise of putting in another traffic light, they’ll gut every underground cable and line with half a mile of the office. This will bring each DMV outpost serviced to a stop. Of course, it might take a year before anyone notices, but eventually there will be no lines and eventually no drivers licences. No one will be able to get on a plane, which will negate the need for the Walruses to fix the TSA which would have been their next target had they not silenced the DMV.

The Walruses will next waddle over to the county tax assessor’s office. Taking them offline will eventually shut all the public schools and hospitals. People will no longer have to pay property tax and will use the cash thus freed to buy high quality education for their children at a competitive rate. The closure of public hospitals will still leave the private “not for profit” hospitals open, so the pinnipeds will have to take down Blue Cross, Medicare, and Medicaid. This task won’t be hard as all have the stability of an upright motionless top.

By now you should have the general idea of what’s needed. Every public good that’s removed will free up more money and increase the public wealth which will allow us to buy more tchotchkes, gadgets, and things we might actually need – ie private goods.

You’ll have doubtless observed that I have not mentioned the Department of Defense. The Walruses I’m describing lack the security clearance to get close to the action. But do not fear, the DoD has their own Walruses assigned to all branches of their services and as civilian employees as well, they start at GS 14. If you thought the Defense budget was high, imagine what it would be without the Walruses.

Remember the surgeon’s creed: When in doubt, cut it out.