Until recently, the average taxpayer was totally unaware of the extent of problems within the various government departments. However, this seems to have changed following the State's prison system's medical care being placed in federal receivership. Following that event, the media enlightened many readers and viewers. However, the taxpayers still do not understand one of the main underlying causes for this and other similar events. A cause that is not unique to prisons, but which exist in every department within the California State government.

What is the real problem being referred to herein? Bullies! California Government agency employees who are bullies. They are a huge real problem. They do what they want simply because they can. In the prison context, for example, adequate medical care was not provided because employees from the very bottom all the way up to the highest administrator believed that they could get away without doing so. Their union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association ("CCPOA") is, and was, so powerful that its members believed they could treat prisoners with deliberate indifference toward their medical care. Actually with respect to all of their constitutional rights, and do so with impunity.

The politicians' solution to these problems is to continue throwing money at the symptoms in the misguided notion that money alone will solve the problems. However, it is obvious from history that if the root cause of a problem is not addressed, then no amount of money spent on managing the symptoms will be anything but wasted money. The particular problem is immaterial. Whichever problem is in the limelight at the time will be, as it has been for many years, addressed by politicians attempting to throw more money at its symptoms. This is just the way it seems to be in California.

Moreover, the bully type of attitude is allowed in California because the State protects its employees through indemnification and legal representation for any action or inaction associated with the job. In other words, when a State employee is sued for something he or she did on the job, or for something he or she should have done but did not do, the State pays for that employee's legal defense and for any settlement. The California Government Code so provides. In practice, the States spends far more money defending bad acts by employees than it would have cost to fix the underlying problem and prevent the bad act from occurring in the first place. The concept that prevention is far cheaper than disaster repair does not appear to apply in the context of State Government.

Whether a client is a prisoner, a patient in a State Hospital, or a taxpaying citizen dealing with the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Franchise Tax Board, or any number of other government entities, each and every State employee who abuses any client, is nothing more than a bully. The facts show that the vast majority of State employees do their jobs properly. However, it is always a small number of individuals in any setting who can make all of the other members of that group look bad. The abusers, or bullies, appear to be of a higher percentage when associated with the weakest members of society, e.g., prisoners, and mental patients in State Hospitals. This is typical bully behavior. Bullies are far less apt to pick on a strong individual who may be able to fight back.

Why do these bullies exist? History seems to indicate one major cause: the quest for power. Everything else desired is achieved from power, e.g., money, control over others, etc. Throughout history, human beings have shown a greed for power which comes at the expense of others. The instinctive human greed for unfettered power dictates that rights must be removed from some and redistributed to others, that rights can only be enjoyed by one at the expense of another. The concept of slavery is based on this model. Early Federalism, for instance, operated in a hierarchy in which the largest and lowest class of people had practically no rights. As each successive upward layer or class became smaller in size, rights were conceded upward, so that the single person at the top - prince, archbishop, king - a dictator - ended up with everybody else's rights in the realm.

Based on the English model established by the Magna Carta, and to avoid the later abuse of rights established by that document, America's Founding Fathers believed that the only guarantee for one's own rights is the concession of those same rights to one's neighbors. Guarding one's neighbors' rights is required for our system to survive, because one's own rights ultimately depend on one's neighbor also maintaining his rights. Our system depends on equal standing before the law. To prevent the tyrannical abuses of Europe, our forefathers made statements like: innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; a man's home is his castle; better a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man be convicted. Our forefathers then put provisions in the Constitution and Bill of Rights to guarantee these and many other principles.

For these reasons, no matter how unpopular any particular group may be, throughout history many good citizens have advocated for the rights of unpopular groups. Presently, the most unpopular group in America is the sex offender, with terrorists and prisoners being the next most unpopular groups. Politicians and the bullies in government have capitalized on this public hatred to strip these groups of their rights. Thus, many citizens who are afraid of "Big Brother" also taking their rights, one group at a time, are stepping up in support of the rights of these unpopular groups before there is no one left to protest. After all, if you don't protect the rights of others, yours could be taken next.

Acquiescing to wrongs against others seems to be a common human trait, providing it doesn't affect one's own self or a family member at the time. This problem of acquiescing and saying nothing was well pointed out in the famous quote made by the Protestant theologian, the Reverend Martin Niemueller, a Pastor in the German Confessing Church. Reverend Niemueller was thrown into the Dachau Concentration Camp by Hitler's Nazi regime during World War Two. He later stated in this now famous quote:

"First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out - because I was not a Communist. 
Then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out - because I was not Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists and I did not speak out - because I was not a Trade Unionist. 
Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me."

Numerous bully type abuses by public employees have been reported by news agencies, e.g.: prisoners who died because some bully refused to provide medical care; Rodney King type police beatings within the prison system, the State Hospital system, and in the public sector; the recent abusive Los Angeles Police Department handling of a May Day immigration rally in MacArthur Park. These and many other bad acts by government bullies cost the taxpayers millions of dollars every year. And, the bad acts continue because the State and local governments continue to protect their bully employees rather than stop their bad acts. These bad acts nearly always result in a lawsuit. In the case of State employees, the Attorney General's Office throws the full resources of the State behind defending the bad acts. Additionally, even after court rulings against the bad acts, the Attorney General utilizes every possible known legal appeal and stall tactic to forestall prevention of the same bad acts in the future.

A large number of Sex offenders, the present most hated group, are being detained in the State Hospital system at great taxpayer expense. Members of this group are reporting that they have been told by State employee bullies that they [the bully] could do whatever they wanted because the public hates you sex offenders and no jury would ever decide in the favor of you sex offenders even if you did complain. This is a sad commentary which indicates deep rooted State employee problems.

For humanitarian and fiscal responsibility reasons, the bullies employed by the State of California, and also local government, must be dealt with. The State must stop the blanket indemnification of employees who do wrong. The State Attorney General's Office must stop filing endless appeals in lawsuits where the State bullies have done wrong. This is not to say that the State should not defend and indemnify State employees who are sued in the course of their employment for properly doing their jobs. It is the bullies who are doing bad, and sometimes even illegal, acts that the State must stop blindly protecting. The taxpayers of California need to insist that their elected representatives put a stop to the huge expenditures being paid out by the State for defending the bad acts of these bullies.