An Open Invitation to Tyranny

Does government like citizen volunteers? My experience and that of some others answers: No they do not. I had a friend in the military long ago about the Korea period. He related this story: When his group arrived in Germany the Sergeant spoke to a large group outside. His first question to them was: “Does anyone here know how to drive a Cadillac?” Of course many or all hands flew up. The result was all were assigned to cut grass with scissors all afternoon! This was the Army Way of discouraging anyone from volunteering for duty.
My wife and I have lived in Athens, Georgia over 50 years. We both do things to try to improve government here although it seems the government does not appreciate our efforts most of the time. Here is one example: A few years ago the government here was planning new fire stations with fancy expensive brick buildings. I did some research to try to minimize the land costs or make more efficient use of them. My efforts were totally voluntary and totally uninvited and unappreciated by the officials in government. For example the U.S. Navy Supply Corps School owned a large track of land. I was uncertain if they already had their own fire department or what possibly hazardous materials they might store there. But if one of the city fire stations were placed there, the land would be “free” since it was already public land. A side benefit would be the added easy fire protection for the Navy School as well. This seemed to me to be a good idea and way to save on land costs which are high today.
In doing this research I made a call to the local Navy School and clearly identified myself and the purpose of my call. A low level employee had answered the phone. He said, “excuse me” and I instantly knew he was going to get an officer to talk to me. I repeated my request to the officer but instead of honestly and promptly answering a question from a lowly U.S. Citizen, he began interrogating me as if I were some sort of criminal or something. He refused to answer anything but said I could file a FOIA request for the information. He was the assistant commander of the Navy School. He acted like he owned the place. After this conversation I sent him and his supervisor a letter expressing my displeasure with him and his response to my free efforts to make this city a better place. One of my questions was if a fire at the Navy School was reported on the public 9 l l system. So I called a 911 operator and simply asked her. She readily spilled the beans and said , “why yes, they do use this system and ask for a city fire truck in reporting a fire”. So all the efforts of this idiot officer who answered the phone were in vain on me. Anyway I wrote about a 12 page report to the government with copies to the Navy School brass and others in the community, recommending, among other things, that one of the roughly $3 million fire stations be placed on Navy School property since it would be “free” because it was already public land owned by the Federal Government. I never received any acknowledgement or reply or “thank you” to my report but I heard over the grapevine that the Navy School Commander Ruff did not like it but did not have the guts to tell me directly or face me directly. The local Commissioners like to hob nob with officer jerks dressed up in their fancy white uniforms. This was my penance for “raising my hand to drive a Cadillac” wasn’t it? These crooks further bought a lot next to our property and built one of the fanciest fire stations in Georgia there to send us a message of their dictatorial power to prevent us from ever expanding our property. This is how citizens are thanked by government when they seek to make things better and help make better government for free.