Public Service. Ah, what  a noble phrase! It conjures up images of a virtuous but humble toiler in the vineyards of goodness, bringing succor to the weak and friendless.

Yeah, right.

In actuality, the toilers exercise their best efforts to oppress the weak and friendless. (As a general principle, this is a pretty good idea. Try oppressing the strong and well-connected, and you will have your butt kicked.) And as this program unfolds, the public grits its collective teeth and bears it.

Given this bitter reality, you might think that “service” is an ill chosen word. But perhaps not. Remember, when a rancher retains the services of a prize bull to provide his cows with progeny, the bull’s activity is also termed “service.” So in reality, the word is used with precisely the same meaning in both contexts, except that in the public case it is applied to a bovine public, rather than a bovine bovine.

There is a famous science fiction short story written in 1950 by Damon Knight (later turned into a Twilight Zone episode) entitled “To Serve Man.” In it, an alien race arrives on Earth, is extremely friendly, offers to help humans solve all their problems, and offers to bring a few humans back to their home world. During their visit, the aliens leave a book lying around, which is written in an incomprehensible language. A philologist begins to attempt to translate the book, and gets as far as the title which is, of course, “To Serve Man.” How nice. However, just as the first shipload of humans lifts off Earth, the philologist arrives at the spaceport, too late, with the unwelcome news that the book is a cookbook.

Taking our guidance from agriculture and literature, we conclude that a public servant is designed  to both ravish us and consume our substance. Bulls eventually tire of dalliance, and retire to a life of munching grass before they are converted into ox-tail soup. Cannibals eventually become sated, and drop dead either of Kreuz-Jacob disease (like mad cow disease, only it comes from eating people) or of obesity. Public servants on the other hand, like the Marquis de Sade, are never satisfied.

But there is a big, big upside!

There is a limit to how much any indvidual can be ravished and financially drained. Hence, as the public servants shift into overdrive, their victims are finally reduced to impoverished slaves from whom no more can be wrung, but for whom provision must still be made.

That’s not so bad. An impoverished slave has precious few decisions to make; every crisis he or she faces is in the NMP category – Not My Problem. Impoverished slaves do not have to decide between different automobile models. Impoverished slaves do not need to make monthly mortgage payments. Impoverished slaves do not need to select vacation destinations. Impoverished slaves do not need to pay income taxes, sales taxes, real estate taxes, or tax taxes. On the other hand, they can still eat, sleep, and reproduce in vegetative comfort, like a french fry on the hoof.

As far as I can tell, potatoes are happy.