Delegitimizing government

As a liberal, I believe that the collective power of government, when harnessed and directed properly and restrained by transparency and Constitutional safeguards, is not a positive force for change and uplift. In fact I believe that use of that force is a moral imperative. This of course places me squarely at odds with Reagan-Goldwater conservatism, as I understand it.

This is why this article at RedState has me rather bemused. Titled, "the brain drain", it bemoans the tainted perception that the American public has of government service:

Bright, ambitious people always leave college looking for the best way to make a big splash in the world. And dreams of making the world a better place are a staple of idealistic youth. It's always interesting and illustrative to observe the ways these folks choose to go about it.

And the pattern reported in the FT article linked above is telling you that government is no longer the place to make a difference.

That FT article quotes an administrator at Princeton as saying,

“The common perception is that if you go into the private sector, you’re an economic entrepreneur, if you go into the non-profit sector you’re a social entrepreneur, but if you go into government, you’re a bureaucrat.”

Here we see the fruits of the conservative doctrine. The alternative is supposed to be the private sector, but since when did profit have a moral component? The route to maximum profit usually lies in the opposite direction from the common good. Settling for, perhaps, 75% of maximum profit and achieving some real, lasting change, is for some reason considered unthinkable and a betrayal of some core value.