Control over government is slipping away.

Vallejo residents show us much about their commitment to ideas of self-government when they persistently vote for candidates selected by public employee unions. They ignore how they destroy their powers of self-government when they allow employee unions and corporations to influence the political process this way.

Many people believe they should vote for the slate of candidates public safety employee unions select, because they see them as heroes in dangerous jobs. This is not how self-determined people in a democracy select their leaders if they want to continue their freedoms.  

Alexander Hamilton warned about people’s tendency to surrender their freedom in hero worship when faced with danger.  He warned that independent states in the American Confederacy would soon attack one another the way European nations did for centuries. He predicted states would keep standing armies for protection and slowly the military establishment would take power and the presidency would evolve into a monarchy.

Hamilton’s prediction did not happen then, because the states ratified the Constitution to join as the republic of the United States.  However, the events following 9/11 proved right his insight into human nature. Americans' frantic admonition to support the troops came dangerously close to destroying our democracy. By supporting the troops, they meant to support without question the troops’ commander President George Bush. I do not doubt that Congress and most Americans would have allowed President Bush to suspend the Constitution and to assume dictatorial powers if al Qaida had attacked twice more within the year.

Americans’ awakening sense of disillusion about the war lowered their approval for President Bush. Blind unquestioning support for him and the troops declined.  Sorrowfully, they included the troops in this backlash by not insisting they receive the top medical care and financial support they need and deserve.   

 I suspect the exaggerated hero status for firefighters in Vallejo and elsewhere stems from Americans’ need to keep some heroes from that awful day. Nobody can dispute that those New York firefighters acted heroically on 9/11. American culture centers on stereotypes, so extending the hero status to all firefighters comes easily.

Firefighters have a dangerous job. They deserve respect and decent pay. They are not entitled to control over local government because of this danger. If so, then taxi drivers, roofers, construction workers and other job categories labor department statistics show more dangerous than the firefighters' job would deserve this same control over government.

Authoritarian control over government is repulsive whether under the control of one executive as the U.S. President or one as union president.  We need to keep firefighters’ role in city government in proper perspective. They are employees hired to serve the public.

It is not easy for voters to do this when elected leaders like State Sen. Patricia Wiggins encourages wrong thinking.   She claimed, “Since 2000, Vallejo has grown about 4000 residents and nearly 1500 more emergency calls. Yet, the firefighters answer these calls with 18 less firefighters than we had in 2001.” From those statistics, she concludes, “We ignored the increased need for one of our most important jobs, our Vallejo firefighters, and put our community at risk.” She says this is shameful.

 It is shameful that she interferes in local government to pander to firefighter union bosses.  She helps to break down the system of representative government when she sides with city employees against elected and public officials who have authority over them. The few facts she supplied do not justify her conclusion or her actions.

Did Vallejo staff the fire department sufficiently in 2000 and understaffed it now, or overstaffed it then and adequately staff it now? Did Wiggins mean that Vallejo emergency calls answered increased by 1500 each  7-year period or by 1500 yearly since 2000? She implies that 4000 new residents made those 1500 new emergency calls. She cannot decide this unless she knows what the emergencies were and when each of the 4000 people moved here. 

 Only about five percent of some Solano County cities’ firefighter responses are to fires. Most of them, more than seventy percent in some cities, are for medical emergencies.  Did Vallejo have dramatically more emergences the past seven years? Or, did it have about the same number with firefighters reporting more responses, because they expanded into the paramedic area? Do, we need more firefighters or should we contract for commercial paramedic services? 

This is how democratic self-government collapses.  People, including elected officials, begin to bypass normal democratic procedures to appeal direct to the perceived political power base in the area. This increases the power shift until the people and their elected leaders lose all power.

Contact Kenneth Brooks at P.O. Box 882, Vallejo, CA 94590. opinion@ethicalego.com