Just because someone works as a guard in a museum does not mean they own the museum. Just because someone works as unionize public school teacher does not mean they own the schools . Just because the US army officers get paid by the government does not mean they own the government. So why do Americans seem to tolerate just that sort of thing happening when public employee unions seek to own the government for their own benefit? What happened to the idea of public service? And who says that only unionized members should own any federal , state or local government jobs? Just because some one drives a bus does not mean they own the bus and just because someone has a bank account at a bank does not mean they own the bank and can take money out of it that is not in their own account. If the founding fathers had not put the military under civilian control imagine if it had become a Marxist socialist public employees union that demanded ownership of the government we would really be in trouble, Fortunately the founding fathers knew damn well how the royals of the old world used state treasuries to pay mercenaries to keep themselves “democratically” elected as the monarchy. The US revolutionary war was not a war for Marxism or for the Paul Krugman Manifesto as Karl Marx had not even been born yet . The revolutionary war was a war for American self interest and for popular self determination. The US constitution did not precede that war. George Washington became president after the war was won. Washington set a world precedent in not becoming an American monarch and refusing to become an American emperor with our without a dynasty. The Constitution clearly states that congress should not create titles for individuals the way the British has a class of lords and that seems to suggest that public service in this country was not intended to become self service. Washington served as president in a defined four year term. There were Roman emperors who lasted just a few days in office because of military coups in rapid succession. That was not the founders intention to duplicate the horrors of ancient times. The subsequent French revolution did result in an Empire with an emperor before it became more democratic and that is because the places existed to be filled with replacement monarchs. France was back to the old game of paying mercenaries to support a central sell interested monarch and empire after it’s revolution.
Public school teachers are actually convinced that the public schools belong to them. They tell us we can’t do without them to the point that some districts waste over $15,000 per student and get worse results than private schools that cost a third as much and less. Then came proof when charter schools in some districts took over the worst of the inner city schools and had a graduation rate of 70 percent at less than half the cost of the union goon owned goon schools. The same people who protest the police policing themselves and having union protection against citizens unfairly harmed never have a bad word about failing public schools. The same people who don’t like the police owning their agencies and can’t stand the military industrial colossus in government are silent when we have a military industrial complex in our public schools. We are not talking about uneducated people but educated ones who seem to believe that some one’s public employment job is an entitlement and that their public service is the same thing as private ownership. At the same time the same people have no respect for private property except their own which they will defend. People don’t mind getting ripped off when their ideology permits getting ripped off. There is no end to government waste in offices and departments where public employees have the attitude that they own the government. It is very rare where a politician is principled enough to fire public employees for behaving badly, Reagan did it when the air traffic controllers decided their public service trumped the public right to decide what the terms are for them giving their services to the government. Public employees ultimately are supposed to serve at the voter’s will that they do. Since when are voters and citizens evil capitalist robber baron pigs ? They are not pigs but people who are subject to the coercion of taxation policy but they also have the right to vote and should not have to come up against a teacher paramilitary communist party industrial complex mentality where their own kids are daily being indoctrinated.
Who should own a democratic government? People who want it to be cost effective and efficient or those with insider special interest is gauging the tax payers? It is pretty easy to tell a blue state from a red state by the attitude of voters about who owns the government and why. There are abuses in all parties involved when they have too much power in government they do tend to act like they own things. You only have to go to Chicago to find the Mayor’s name painted on the door to the public library to remind you that your money was re-given to you by them. Once inside the library it seems like the Librarians act like they own the place and maybe they do? If you wonder why Rome started to fail it comes down to the same entrenched bureaucracy taking ownership of all governmental departments and even the ritual forums. Roman emperors found they had to buy mercenary allegiance in a variety of these groups and especially in their own praetorian guard or they risked being assassinated by their own mercenaries. Stalin and Hitler found they had the same problem insulating themselves from their own mercenaries and both became paranoid with the need to purge this group or that group in their own organizations. This is not where we want American democracy or republican government to be heading. We need to nip the idea that pubic employees own any part of the government in the bud. They should own no more than the rest us and maybe they should sacrifice more than the rest of us as public servants by accepting less money to do jobs for the good of the community and society. They always pretend they are altruists except when it comes to real altruism which is not coerced altruism. Just because you work for the government does not mean you own more of it than any other citizen does. Join the tea party and become a true public servant if you are a public employee. Hey offer to take less money and work fewer hours more efficiently so the government is not so awfully in debt at the expense of taxpayer that include you. Unions are against people volunteering to work for the government? No they like people giving their time as citizens in exercises of citizenship but when you offer to take their jobs as scabs when they go on strike for less money than they want you have Jimmy Hoffa Jr saying they are going to have to “take you out.”
The Tea Party people need to consider working to get a federal law passed that requires public employees to take an oath to the republic that makes them public servants first and party member partisans second. The oath could read:
“I will only take a public service job to serve at the will of the people to most efficiently provided services at the lowest cost possible and will step aside when a new better way is found to run things or by the will of elected officials elected by the people. I can find more profitable employment elsewhere if I need it and will let my job go to someone new and perhaps younger who wants to work for less for the good of the government and the public good. I disown all union organizations because I put my country , state, municipality first as my job is just for service and i accept any compensation that government can afford to pay me . If I were only interested in money I could certainly find better employment elsewhere because i want the government to hire me because i am talented and have something to offer. I will never act as if i own my government office , position or even my job as employment because that job belongs to the state. I will treat all of my citizen customers as the sovereigns of this country because this is the United States of America and I will bend over backwards to make sure that all citizens that have to deal with me happy because American have the right to the pursuit of happiness in dealing with their government officials.”
Just imagine how much better the government would be if the employees took such an oath.