The Effect of Accountability

 

 

 

If you think bureaucrats or civil servants are there to serve you, I have a bridge for you and it’s on sale! When I got my last divorce, I was expected to deliver the paperwork to the Monument Café in Georgetown Texas. I had been instructed to leave it under a sugar bowl. I couldn’t just hand it to my soon to be ex because the CPS didn’t want any contact between us. No, she wasn’t at the court hearing because I had to represent both sides and the Child Protective Services was protecting all parties involved. All of this stemmed from my having had words with one of their lawyers in the hallway of the courthouse and it was decided that I was “aggressive.” Now they wanted immediate delivery that day and I informed the judge whereupon he sent the bailiff with me to process the ruling at the district clerk’s window.

 

Well, I presented myself before this fine upstanding county employee and she received my order with suitable professionalism telling me that I would receive the paperwork within ten days and the bailiff said, “Judge say you gotta do it right now!”

 

She looked at him, then me, took a rubber stamp and stamped the judge’s order, shoving it back at me through the window. The bailiff turned me and led me to the door. I asked him if she was supposed to write something in a book or register to which he told me to just keep walking.

 

And that, ladies and gentlemen should tell you all you need to know about how the government of, by, and for the people really works! The distance between elected and appointed is a vast gulf and those two ships will never pass in the night. Write that down. There’s gonna be a quiz later.

 

When I was a boy growing up in Killeen we all wanted to go to work for the Civil Service. You got a reasonable salary especially if your work history was dishwasher at the Blue Bonnet Café, the work was easy ie just live through the day and when it was all over you got a retirement check. They could fire you but it literally took an act of Congress and nobody wanted that to interrupt their career plans. So at Fort Hood the Army would march off to war and the “staff” would keep the home fires and coffee pot on.

 

Naturally neither myself or any of the other juvenile delinquents that I grew up with could qualify and positions were usually filled by whomever survived Vietnam. So I became a writer and settled for a life of abject poverty.

 

Your entire government is primarily operated by critters so described above. In the private sector on a good day they would work in a factory. Put right front wheel on car, wait for next car, check out, go home. Pharmacists operate basically the same way. Did you ever notice when you drop off a prescription, I don’t care if it’s for ten pills, and nobody is in the store, they will tell you your medication will be ready in one or two hours, or even the next day and if you hang back and just watch you will see the pharmacist standing there, staring off into space, blinking like a bull frog!

 

Ok, where am I going with this? Of late our new president has been rattling the safe places occupied by appointees, civil servants, and bureaucrats. Elon Must Kick Your Ass has been embarrassing the staff by way of checking their checkbooks and the Democrats are wringing their hands saying that it’s the end of the world. And what is the big concern? We’re running out of eggs! Shades of Monkeypox. You remember that, don’t you. When the kids all went back to school and the infection rate for COVID got exposed for what it really was so the next big thing was Monkeypox, I supposed because it was named after the kids. Then they had to change that to M-Pox because the WOKE crowd deemed that the word “Monkey” was a bit too racial for the pronoun crowd but that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

 

The government does that you know. Whenever the truth bubbles up suddenly there’s a crisis. It’s called misdirection. Don’t look here, look there. The cop telling you there’s nothing to see while they mop up someone’s brains off the street or your wife trying to tell you why the toilet seat is up when she’s been home alone all day. Well, the toilet seat’s been up in Washington for a full minute! And Trump just flushed the commode.

 

Now tell me: except for adding a little water to your omelette how has all this affected you personally? How many divorces do you plan on getting?  Now don’t get on me. They know me down at the courthouse and I get a special rate. I mean how many times do you encounter a civil servant? Let’s examine a normal day. The cop who followed you all the way to the HEB while your butt bit buttonholes in the seat of your car? No. He’s an employee. He is hired and can be fired on a moment’s notice. The school crossing guard? Probably a volunteer. The girl at the check out counter at the store? Minimum wage and most likely part time so she doesn’t have benefits. And she rings, sacks your groceries and lets you know that there’s a sale coming up tomorrow. Then you have to go down and renew your license plate on your car. Now tell me. Aren’t you just a little bit nervous while you’re standing in line. And the public servant there is moving about as fast as that pharmacist I mentioned earlier. Finally it’s your turn in the barrel. So you hand your paperwork to her and stand there all greased up, knowing that the odds are against you. Will it be lack of proper information, ID question or the old, reliable wrong color ink? Because the lady’s job is not to serve you! Her job is to make it to 4:30 and get out that door. And if you do manage to navigate the rocky road of renewal don’t you feel a tremendous relief as you head for the door. Why can’t she act like the girl at HEB?

 

Accountability. Our government is run by people who aren’t accountable to anyone. There is separation of church and state so they’re not even accountable to God. Remember the time Jesus was in court? Well, there you go. And you think that you’re gonna fare any better?

 

These are the people Trump is after. These are the reasons the government costs so much and does so little. These are the reasons taxes go up and service goes down. And this is the reason Trump is on a rampage. The formula is simple. If we can shut down one hundred civil departments and by hook or crook the opposition gets twenty-five reopened we are still seventy-five better off than we were when we started. And just maybe the survivors of the night of the long pencils will be a bit more considerate with the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.  Now wouldn’t your day be a whole lot better? Hey! Did you hear that? I believe your prescription is ready.