Last week when I criticized a proposal to outsource Department of Transportation jobs, I wasn\u2019t suggesting that Gov. Bill Walker doesn\u2019t understand the meaning of public service. Nor did I intend to imply all government workers are dedicated to that purpose. Nothing is ever that black and white. But every attempt to downsize, modernize, rightsize or otherwise improve government operations has limited itself to addressing symptoms, not the root causes buried deep in the collective American psyche.<\/p>\n
In Walker\u2019s defense, his recent decision to reduce his salary by a third displayed a powerful commitment to the state and its people. Now if his commissioners and the entire Legislature followed his lead, it would be difficult for state employees to complain about their salaries being frozen.<\/p>\n
The governor\u2019s message applies to every state resident as well. Remember, we all took a hit when he vetoed $1,000 from our Permanent Fund Dividend. And he wants that to become our permanent sacrifice to help fund state government now and into the future. We need to accept that and move on.<\/p>\n
Instead, the most common response to that proposal has been \u201cDon\u2019t touch my PFD.\u201d Why should we give up any of our share of the state\u2019s oil wealth to serve the government\u2019s needs? Didn\u2019t \u201cWe the People\u201d create government to serve us?<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s also our government \u201cof the people and by the people.\u201d Which means we all have a role in serving the collective good.<\/p>\n
Our difficulty with the concept of service begins with its inferior image next to the production lines of our economy. For instance, in the service sector, we couple what we consider low skill work with the lowest end of the pay scale. To call those slave wages is an appropriate reference to the Latin origin of service \u2014 servitium \u2014 which meant slavery.<\/p>\n
On the other side of the spectrum, we show great respect for the men and women in our armed services. The meaning of service here originated in a time when knights defended the kingdom. Service was to the throne first and its subjects second. Near the end of the 18th century, non-military support for the British East India Company, which had its own armies, became known as civil service.<\/p>\n
Then came the American Revolution. Along with peace, justice and general welfare, our Constitution intended government to \u201cprovide for the common defence\u201d and \u201csecure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hence we have the government serving its people. But that only works as long there are people who value these ideals above their own individual liberty and prosperity.<\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t that what it means to be a soldier?<\/p>\n
These are the closing lines at the end of a long poem titled \u201cA Soldier\u2019s Sacrifice,\u201d written in 2007 by U.S. Army Major Gerd Schroeder.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank a Soldier but don\u2019t think you can understand,<\/p>\n
Unless you have served, his deep pain, pride and honor,<\/p>\n
In giving his Humanity to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s service of the highest order.<\/p>\n
But if we can\u2019t understand unless we\u2019ve served, then how does anyone recognize this call Schroeder says is \u201cgiving without grudge, to all Americans, whether sinister or saint.\u201d<\/p>\n
Think about a few of the of the U.S. Army\u2019s recruiting slogans. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a job, it\u2019s an adventure,\u201d to \u201cbe all you can be\u201d in \u201can army of one\u201d. There\u2019s no call to serve anybody except oneself.<\/p>\n
A decade ago those gave way to \u201cArmy Strong.\u201d In an essay published on the Army\u2019s website, Lt. Col. Wayne Shanks gives us a dozen different meanings of those two abstract words. Service is not among them.<\/p>\n
But could a call to serve the country ever been be clearly heard alongside our constant admiration for individual liberty? Isn\u2019t it muffled further by defining prosperity as material wealth, especially when thousands of consumer products have been vying for everyone\u2019s attention ever since we were old enough to watch television? The difficulty with military recruitment is it has to compete in a \u201cwhat\u2019s in it for me\u201d society.<\/p>\n
This is why recruits undergo an intense psychological reprogramming at boot camp. Starting with the induction haircut, the years of self-centered individuality must be eroded away. But still, nothing in their basic training guarantees every soldier will be transformed to henceforth dedicate their lives to serving something greater than themselves.<\/p>\n
This diversion through military service was necessary to shed light on the problems with the state and federal civil service system. They\u2019re not lacking a profit motive. It\u2019s not unions protecting bad workers, or employees pampered with job security, that bloat it with inefficiencies. Those are symptoms of a nation whose overriding allegiance to the individual undermines that value of service. And if we don\u2019t address it from that perspective, our government will never truly serve its people.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week when I criticized a proposal to outsource Department of Transportation jobs, I wasn\u2019t suggesting that Gov. Bill Walker doesn\u2019t understand the meaning of public service. Nor did I intend to imply all government workers are dedicated to that purpose. Nothing is ever that black and white. But every attempt to downsize, modernize, rightsize […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-33550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33550"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}