As some of you may know, I was away last week, attending a week-long “separation counseling” course that is legally required by the Department of Defense for anyone who is separating from military service.  The reason it is required is because the government just cares so darn much about the wellbeing of individual members of the military so the government can cover its own ass and claim zero responsibility for the ridiculously high numbers of unemployment, homelessness, and suicide among veterans.

Even though I wanted nothing to do with this charade, the class was actually surprisingly useful, as the majority of it was taught by a private-sector hiring manager, moonlighting as a consultant for the Department of Labor.  He relied on decades of experience to teach us what the private sector finds desirable.  Naturally, this included a huge de-emphasizing of military behaviors and terminology, and an honest assessment that in the real world, people are going to be suspicious of veterans, rather than worship them, as the government decrees they should.

One of the most hilarious parts of the course was when he had to cover federal employment.  God bless the guy, it was a topic he was required to address, but he simply rushed through it really quickly, showing little to no interest in it, and focused on getting us ready for private sector employment.  One of the required topics was the infamous “veterans preference” in federal hiring.  The table below is an exact replica of one found in the student guide for the course.

This table is meant to be read one column at a time, and shows how the veterans/disability preference operates in federal hiring decisions.  In the left column, all the candidates are ranked, based solely on their qualifications for the job.  By the time you get to the right column, all veterans/disabled preferences have been factored in.  The main takeaway from this table is that, when the candidates are ranked solely on qualifications, Cameron Rules comes in dead last, with five other individuals more qualified than him.  However, because Mr. Rules is a veteran rated at 30% disability by the VA, he is automatically moved up two categories, and to the front of any category if nobody else in the category has these same preferences.  As a result, he is moved from the very bottom of the list, to the very top of the list, based solely on his veteran’s preference.  If my understanding from the course is correct, the federal government’s hiring manager will be legally required to hire Cameron Rules, despite the fact that there are five other individuals more qualified than he to perform this job.  To the credit of my classmates, many of them pointed out that this seemed unfair, but the instructor wasn’t really interested in arguing the point, and quickly moved on to something more useful.

And we wonder why government is corrupt and inefficient?  But it’s actually worse than inefficiency.  By promoting a constant flow of individuals from military service to government jobs, an entire workforce can be created that has never spent a day of their lives in the private sector.  By encouraging the hiring of veterans into federal agencies, these agencies will become increasingly staffed by those who are sympathetic to statism, and see government as the ultimate solution to every possible problem.  Rather than a diverse range of opinions, federal agencies will become a veritable echo chamber, filled with minds that are hostile to freedom.

Rapid turnover of diverse individuals is one of the keys to a free government.  It is for this exact reason that the founders envisioned a government that lacked a standing army, and whose politicians were citizens first, served as representatives for a brief amount of time, and then returned to their chosen productive occupations.  To continually shuffle individuals from government schools into active duty military service and then into the federal bureaucracy is to produce a cadre of loyalists who see the fruits of others legitimate labor (taxes) as their entitlement, from cradle to grave.  The potential for corruption and abuse of power is nearly limitless.  The system of “veterans preference” is not only unfair, but it is completely antithetical to freedom and prosperity.