Monday, November 25, 2019
The Bogus Mantle of “Career Public Servant”
In the latest attempt by America’s Democomm/socialist party to remove the elected president, a parade of individuals billed as “witnesses,” were given the national spotlight, though few of them “witnessed” anything. During the attempt to pass off this elite clique' appraisals as a source of wisdom and goodness, an impressive moniker was often used, ... “career public servant.”
While there are bureaucrats and government functionaries that perform their jobs with little controversy or fanfare, it’s become a common defense of government overreach and incompetence to praise “public servants” for the simple act of scoring a well-paying and relatively prestigious job. Thus, a minion in the rusted wheel of government is compared to a fire fighter rushing into a burning building. The ultimate stretch in this absurd misnomer occurs when a politician is referred to as a “public servant.” It’s not as if most of them don’t leave their “service” with a vastly augmented bank account and followup careers as lobbyists or cable news “contributors.” Candidate Joe Biden is regularly praised for his decades of “public service.” What utter BS.
In the impeachment hearings over the past week, partisan media hacks and their brethren continually lauded the noble altruism and goodness of “career public servants” who have scored high-paying and prestigious jobs directing American foreign policy. Of course their job isn’t to direct policy at all but to carry out the wishes of an elected president. I have no doubt that there are many worthy staff members from America’s State Department who perform their responsibilities flawlessly and carry out their responsibilities out of a genuine desire to “do good” but I’m not so certain that monitoring and critiquing the president’s phone calls is in their job description — if they are entrenched partisans from a prior administration even less so.
There are very few people who are purely altruistic in their choice of career goals. Certainly many would like to see “helping people” in their job description but it’s hardly the first choice of how one gains an income. For most of us, adequate income and job conditions are reasonable targets for a satisfactory livelihood. If one can go a step further and add perks and prestige, all the better. But, pretending that one is performing a noble act of kindness by scoring a lucrative position in government is a bit over the top in the government scam-olympics.
At the impeachment “inquiries” one of the so-called witnesses (that the Democrat chairman would allow) was the now famous Alexander Vindman. Almost comically, he arrived in full dress uniform with medals blazing. Obviously military service outranks (no pun intended) a mere academic career as bonafide service but, the implication that his career choice somehow legitimized his worldview is absolute nonsense. The fact that his usual work attire is a conventional suit affords further skepticism to his posturing. His personal view of one phone call between the president and a foreign leader is meaningless in spite of his uniform or willingness to risk his life on a battlefield. The media, of course wasn’t so enamored by the uniforms of Oliver North, General Petraeus, or Michael Flynn. Before Petraeus was found guilty of anything, left wing groups pinned him with the moniker, “General Betray-us.” But, now we have a heroic “public servant” who agrees that “orange man” is “bad.”
The Democrats and establishment media have begun a horrible precedent by pretending it’s legitimate to literally monitor a president’s every conversation and action, insuring it complies with the standards of (unelected) “career public servants.” While clear and obvious crimes have occurred under previous presidents, all presidents at one time or another in the normal conduct of their duties have committed what are technically minor “crimes.” The pervasive go-to argument of “obstruction of justice” is one of those catch-all terms that could be applied to a host of actions carried out by virtually every chief executive. In this president’s case, the charge is made every time he defends himself from unfounded accusations. In the recent Trump / Ukraine example the tenuous claims of wrong-doing are absurd. Nothing he’s been accused of even happened. There was no “pressure,” no hoped-for Ukrainian actions delivered, and no money earmarked to them was withheld in the end. While the entire phone conversation offers some fun exercises for conjecture by legal gymnasts, none of it can stand as worthy of impeaching a president. Add to this the nonsense of Ivy League clowns pulled from the woodwork of government offices and testifying as to how they feel about a guy that most of them hated to begin with and what do you have? Just another group of partisans whining over their disappointment that queen Hillary lost an election.
So why is such honor directed at the pseudo-intellectuals of government agencies? Supposedly they’re smart but, there are a variety of intellectual styles. It could accurately be argued that the witty and successful entrepreneur with a high school education is as smart as the bookish Ivy League intellectual. George Bush was derided by the media and his political opponents as being “incurious” and lacking the scholarly disposition that the left so admires. Yet, he had been a fighter pilot...and, president of the United States — both requiring some intellectual fortitude. Donald Trump is a successful real estate developer and builder, not to mention successful television personality. He defeated several popular establishment political figures and became president of the United States. As president he quickly turned the lackluster American economy into one of unprecedented vitality. Yet, we are supposed to believe that, unlike “career public servants,” he is “stupid” because of botched spelling errors on social media (none of us have done that). No doubt he never memorized the capitols of Sub-Saharan countries or read Canterbury tales. Donald Trump would no doubt fail to establish the level of scholarship that Fiona Hill has been noted for but, conversely, I doubt that she would have the skill or instinctual awareness — intelligence— to successfully run a multi-billion dollar real estate empire...or the office of President of the United States.
This touches on the issue of what Eric Hoffer noted as the perennial dispute between “the [person] of action” vs. “the [person] of ideas.” One could simplify the analysis and simply refer to a conflict between business persons and intellectuals. The business mentality is directed toward practical results. The intellectual and their lightweight spawn in journalism and the arts lives in a world of theory and idealism. Pragmatism seldom causes mass destruction or dystopia. Idealism has left the pages of history soaked in blood and suffering. The world would be a better place if the ideologues of the world stuck to publishing their views in journals and directing their minds to creative pursuits.
In some ways the current divide is one of blue-collar vs. a strain of academic white collar (or maybe turtleneck sweater). I and many people I know who share my worldview coincidently share a blue collar upbringing. The friends I’ve had who hold beliefs more in line with current “progressive” thought have inevitably been from a more refined economic strata and I’d dare say, a more pampered background. Marx referred to the blue collar “working class” types who failed to follow the socialist program as the “Lumpen Proletariat.” Little has changed today, where the same smug arrogance is directed at those who just don’t see the wisdom in their intellectual betters’ plans on how to run the world.
Back to the current newsworthy characters in “public service.” Who are these clowns? People who aced their SATs, shook the right hands at Washington dinner parties, wrote some articles that no one read, and have been on the cutting edge of the plot to impose world government by a social planning elite (them). Bow down lowly peasant before the grandiosity of your betters.
In the end, the current divide in political thought is not one that sides can defend based on their supposed intellectual rigor. I can’t “prove” that I should have a high degree of personal freedom any more than a statist can “prove” that I should obey a powerful government authority. The intellectual credentials of one making such arguments really has little value. A lack of education or literacy in a backwoods countryman hardly nullifies the value of his or her desire to be free.
By definition a “public servant” should Serve the public (duh!). Using their pampered status as a means to assist in the imposition of statist authority over a free people is hardly an act of “service.” We can admire those who have attained status in their careers in government but to call them true servants we should expect them to restrict their actions to service and not merely be parasites with a will to power and a gripe with the current commander and chief.
