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We don't just need a separation between church and state, we also need one between the private and public sector. Some twenty years ago there was a rally cry that government should be run like a business and that public sector jobs should not be a career path, and thus, the line between public and private became blurred. I'll be the first to say it, IT WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE.
The business sector does not have the integrity nor the self-control required to govern a country of 300,000,000. Businessmen actually run up the management ladder faster if they can shut off that valve that prevents most normal people from cutting jobs or from dumping poison in someone's backyard. And probably the biggest reason of all to separate private interests from running the government, is that true public servants have a much closer relation to military service than your typical CEO, thus hold human life in higher regard than someone that sees our sons as disposable guard dogs that protect their private empires.
There have been abuses of government by private sector men and women of late and I think it's time that legislation with teeth be implimented so that these abuses are stopped. Eliminating pension plans for corrupt politicians is a good start. But why don't we go the extra step and require full transparency for private corporations like Halliburton? We know something is amiss and anyone who thinks that company is going another ten years without a full SEC investigation is a bigger pessimist than I am. I also think it's time to put a stop to the influence that unelected kingpins have on our government decisions. People like Jim Baker, for instance.
In sum, I think that people who want to come and work in the public sector need to understand that two things will not be tolerated:
(1) The use of government positions to improve the financial interests for their friends or families or for their business prospects.
(2) The use of our children as attack dogs to threaten other countries into submission to ease their private business transactions.
Legislation should be passed in such a way that any citizen can request an investigation of a government action which appears to put the financial interest of wealthy individuals ahead of of the health, safety or welfare of the public. I would never have believed that such legislation would have been necessary, but it looks like government has lost its way. It's one thing to be against big government that tries to improve the life for millions of impoverished dark Americans, but now we have big government that is improving the life for a few thousand mostly white millionaires and creating hardships for everyone else.
I say it's time we bring integrity back to government because that was the only true way that we convinced foreign countries that we were a benign leader that they did not have to fear and could respect. No corporation will ever achieve that goal, because we now live in a global economy, and people in the third world know too well that Coke is not life.
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