It used to be the mantra that one became a government worker out of a sense of both civic pride and a willingness to sacrifice what could have been a higher salary in the private sector for a lower salary but greater job security in the public sector. Truth is that ever since JFK signed the executive order permitting government workers to unionize in 1962, working for Uncle Sam has little to do with civic pride and everything to do with a competitive salary and a benefits/retirement package that private sector employees can only dream about.

And the best part? It’s almost impossible to get fired for being lazy or incompetent.

Even as the Obama Recession rolls on through the months, grinding down the private sector, the public sector continues to grow like the Golem of Hebrew myth.

White House apologists were quick to point to the unemployment rate decline from 10 percent to 9.7 percent as evidence that the recovery is gathering momentum and that President Obama’s policies — especially his $787 billion economic stimulus bill Congress approved last February — are “working.” But the back story behind the figures provides cold comfort.

First, the drop to 9.7 percent unemployment does not reflect the creation of new jobs that normally accompanies an economic recovery. The number of new jobs is actually declining. Total nonfarm payroll employment, for example, dipped by an additional 20,000 positions after a December decline of 150,000 positions. The unemployment rate the day Obama took office last year stood at 7.6 percent and 134.6 million people had jobs. When he signed the economic stimulus, Obama promised the bill would bolster the economy sufficiently to keep unemployment below 8.0 percent. But the unemployment rate has exceeded 8.0 percent since last fall, and total employment stands at only 129.5 million. The stimulus has been a bust.

That’s an understatement of Olympic proportions. More Americans are losing their jobs every day. More Americans who have lost their jobs are collecting unemployment benefits. More Americans who have run through the course of their unemployment benefits have since abandoned the search for work - because there is none. America is rapidly becoming a nation of peasants and serfs.

Second, anybody who thinks the job situation is going to improve dramatically in coming months is not paying attention to what’s going on behind the unemployment rate. The Hudson Institute’ Diana Furchtgott-Roth notes that “the labor force participation rate declined from 64.9% to 64.6%, the lowest since August 1985. This means that more and more Americans are dropping out of the labor force. Last month 661,000 Americans left the labor force.”

And it will continue to get worse - as I predicted it would months ago. Businesses will continue to fail. The unemployment rolls will continue to swell. And as the deficit increases astronomically, America will continue to approach her Armageddon.

Further, adds Furchtgott-Roth, who was formerly the Department of Labor’s chief economist, “the percent of Americans unemployed for 27 weeks and longer rose from 38.7% to 39.8%. This is the highest since [the Bureau of Labor Statistics] started keeping records in 1948.” Worst of all, she said, “the number of jobs created in temporary help services, an indicator of future demand, actually fell from 55,000 to 46,000. So not only are workers not hiring permanent workers, they’re hiring fewer temporary workers too.”

This is the reason why I get irritated when I listen to Larry Kudlow’s radio program on Saturday. Kudlow is a prolific columnist for the National Review Online  - and an incurable optimist who, in my humble opinion, is clueless in matters involving political science and philosophy. He ever and always grasps for the tiniest silver lining in any dark cloud he sees but does not comprehend the bigger picture.

Insofar as I would love nothing more than to start working again, I derive  a chilly comfort from the ongoing unemployment crisis: it is driving this nation closer to revolution. The last thing we need right now is a brief economic recovery, insofar as the sheeple - you know, the idiots responsible for the gaggle of morons who currently infest the District of Columbia - would become inclined to agree that “hope and change” has, indeed, finally arrived, that happy days are here again and that, perhaps, the likes of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi should be spared at the polls this coming November.

What this nation needs is radical, revolutionary change - not more of the continued decay that has rotted it from within.

Third, among the few sectors of the economy showing net employment growth over the past year is the federal government. The federal civil service is rapidly expanding as Obama increases the size of government, with 33,000 new positions being added in January alone. Only 9,000 of those new slots were for temporary census jobs. In other words, what we are seeing is good times for the public sector and the growing prospect of a continuing and perhaps even deepening recession for everybody else.

That is what will ultimately lead to this nation’s collapse. Yes, I said it: collapse. The current growth of federal government, federal spending, tax increases and economic decline is unsustainable. There can be one and only one outcome and it won’t be a happy one.  In this respect, I am obliged to disagree with Ronald Reagan, who once remarked that America’s best days are still ahead of her.

Sorry, Gipper. Her best days are long behind her. We have become Rome and Rome is now burning.  A new Nero sits on the throne and dominates a thoroughly corrupt neo-Roman Senate. The barbarians have long since breached the gates and 12 million of them now drain our bankrupt treasury with more invading every year.

We’ve seen the decline for decades. The current course is unsustainable. UNSUSTAINABLE. Now it’s time to watch the fall on skids greased by government worker salaries, benefits and pensions.