I am disappointed at the level of thought Jay Evensen put into his editorial regarding the abolishment of the merit system for government workers. Aside from the loaded words of "bureaucrat," "protected employees" and the derogatory tone toward government workers in general, his thought process overlooked one critical point of the merit system. That is, the merit system was not set up to protect lazy, inefficient or inept government workers. It was set up to protect the citizens of this country from corrupt, inept and inefficient politicians. How is this so?
Evensen compounded his error by stating that the merit system was once useful but now such things could not happen. How does he figure? Does he honestly believe that our local politicians are incapable of exploiting such an army of appointed government workers for their own ends and purposes? They all seem to do a pretty good job as it is spinning the media, exchanging political access for favors, finding loopholes in campaign laws and generally evading responsibility when things go wrong. They don't need the extra help an army of paid government workers would afford them.Finally, it seems to me that the whole gist of Evensen's comments were that his political friends are complaining to him that merit employees don't respect them enough and they're too hard to fire when the mood strikes 'em. To me, forcing some politician to put up with a surly merit system employee who doesn't fully respect him is really a small price to pay to keep our government democratic and our elections honest.
Sherrick Kowalczik
Fruit Heights