Obviously I am talking about policies with a moral or ethical dimension where reasonable people could disagree on whether the policy could be construed as an ethical or moral concern for that employee along the lines of military personnel refusing an unethical order.
In order for that employee to satisfy their conscience and sleep well at night, which is the greater good or evil: resigning on principle or staying and preventing said policy?
If you have meaningful examples of these gray areas I'd like to hear about them. If you are an absolutist or the policy is black and white for you (like abortion) choose another policy that is gray for you.
The employee should resign visibly & on principles
The employee should undermine the policy.
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If a hi-rank govt employee vehemently opposes POTUS policy, should they resign & let boss hire a pliant lackey or stay & undermine boss's policy?
Unelected bureaucrats didn’t have to campaign for their jobs and they can be fired just like any employee in the private sector can be fired.
They also wield an incredible amount of power and can utterly target and literally destroy any business or person through regulations, civil fines and even lawfare.
That doesn’t mean everybody in these government agencies is evil. But the rise of partisan actors who are targeting private citizens over political ideologies is truly horrifying.
The latest example was FEMA intentionally skipping over any house that had a Trump flag in Florida. FEMA is trying to throw one employee under the bus of this incident. But no way just one mid / low level agent had that much power to push such an egregiously discriminatory policy. It took a whistleblower to expose that which means this policy was signed off on by likely several high level FEMA employees.
Anyway I am very excited that the Trump administration is going to clean house on this KGB bullsh*t. He underestimated it during his first term but now he’s going to directly cut out the cancer. This bs has been going on since the IRS intentionally target conservatives during the Obama administration.
Also isn’t it ironic you never hear of the these government agencies targeting and abusing leftist organizations and individuals. Not that I want them to. These are tax payer funded agencies that are supposed to be 100% non-partían.
But discriminatory abuse of power is reprehensible. It need to stop.
Please explain what a conservative is and just exactly what did the IRS do during the Obama admin intentionally targeting these conservatives? You couldn't find a man more conservative than my father has been his entire life and he couldn't answer it either! I also 100% agree with you government jobs are suppose to be non -partisan as all taxpayers pay each and every one of them. Apparently that message never made it to the present SCOTUS and the vast majority of both the house or senate as they (both sides) sit like bobble-head puppets doing nothing but exactly what their prospective leader tells them to do regardless what they think or the ones that put them there wish they would do.
@katiesmuff n 2013, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS), under the Obama administration, revealed that it had selected political groups applying for tax-exempt status for intensive scrutiny based on their names or political themes.
Also @katiesmuff can you give just one example of a government agency that abused it’s power via partisan bad actors against leftist organizations in the last 10-15 years? Every single incident was targeted against conservatives and there were several incidents from multiple agencies (IRS, DOJ, OSCHAA, FEMA, FBI, etc).
Really when have any of these organizations been accused of targeting leftists?
It was my understanding that those groups that were investigated were also alleged to have organized violence planned or previously accomplished and may or may not have been on the domestic terrorism list. Can you confirm or deny that with a source? I've never been certain.
Each one of those is a valid concern or accurate observation.
Presuming Trump does fire all the schedule F employees, What will happen to the institutional memory and expertise of these organizations?
Terrifyingly, scotus has decided that Congress empowering executive agencies to execute the laws that Congress has enacted is not kosher and SCOTUS has stated that Congress ITSELF should implement the regulations envisioned by that law. In effect, it makes Congress the KNOWLEDGABLE EXPERT and arbiter of every law and regulation executive agencies have formally made & enforced.
The result of this decision will be horrifically poor regulations and enforcement as Congress has no clue about much of anything outside of its purview and more alarmingly, if Congress has to regulate and create laws to enforce compliance, They will have absolutely no time or resources for more pressing issues. It's a disaster in the making.
I would think deliberately undermining policy is treasonous in nature. Asif Rahman might have felt morally challenged but it does not justify espionage.
Newt Gingrich made some interesting comments recently in that there are only a bit over 500 of us (Reps and Senators) and 1000's of them so it can be quite hard to get them to do what Reps and senate wants. He said to watch Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister if you want to know how it does work in practice.
Very funny and well worth watching. I don't know what the US calls what I would call the Public Service and what the UK calls Civil Service. But it seems endemic the public/civil/? service exists to undermine and frustrate our elected representatives. According to Newt, they refer to the elected reps as the summer help and the upper echelon think they should be left to do all the decision making.
Clearly leaking is the soft end of this.
I think it is justified when gov't has been wasteful and incompetent.
" I would think deliberately undermining policy is treasonous in nature" So if a President did that while in office, he should be impeached and removed, correct? Or if a candidate campaigns on policies that would undermine the best interest of the people of his country, he shouldn't get elected, right? Ok. Got it.
You may want to check out your definition of treason before you start throwing it around.
If that is still your definition of treason, every president since the articles of confederation is guilty of treason by not enforcing or slow walking congresses laws.
I use treason in the ordinary sense of betrayal of someone or something especially one's country and, by extension, it's gov't lawful (i. e. constitutional ) exercise of it's powers.
Biggest problem is that there is no such thing as COMPROMISE in politics any longer with either major party. It's been my way or the highway keeping the infighting continually. No party has the perfect plan and until the day both begin to bend and work things out together we as the people are doomed for what we have seen for the last 8 fucking useless years. I have kids growing up so I keep hoping for the best!
In terms of increasing government efficiency Musk should fire them and reduce govt. debt. Of course those people have no chance on free market where moral and competency of a state sinecure don't matter. But it's survival of the fittest that makes a society strong. XD
Fire them? What exactly will that accomplish in terms of savings?
FACTS: About 45% of discretionary spending in recent years has gone to salaries and benefits for government employees, both military and civilian in roughly equal amounts.
Discretionary spending represented a 25% of all federal spending in 2022.
The General Schedule (GS) classification and pay system covers about 1.5 million civilian white-collar Federal employees worldwide.
Oh look! More facts: Based on the search results, here are the key points about discretionary spending as a percentage of the federal budget: In 2023, discretionary spending accounted for 28% of the total federal budget5. Discretionary spending is projected to decrease to a historically low level relative to the size of the national economy over the next decade5. In fiscal year 2023, the federal government spent $1.7 trillion on discretionary spending, which was about 27% of the total $6.3 trillion budget23. Discretionary spending has been declining as a share of the overall budget, primarily due to the growth of major mandatory entitlement spending like Social Security and Medicare2. Between 1973 and 2023, discretionary spending's share of total federal spending fell from 53% to 28%2. Discretionary spending is divided into defense and non-defense categories. In 2023, defense spending accounted for $792 billion, while non-defense discretionary spending was $919 billion2. In summary, discretionary spending currently represents about 27-28% of the total federal budget, a proportion that has been declining over time and is expected to continue decreasing in the coming years.
Do the math. How much do you plan on saving and at what cost to our nation?
Since I'm in a military background... I'm going to put it like this. They tell me who to kill or what to do and then I do things. The oath is to the constitution, not my fee fees, and if it lines up, I accept my responsibility and just get it done.
Let's say, hypothetically I just don't want to because I just don't "feel" like it. I can fuck it up and claim incompetence or literally get fucked for not following orders. "You signed up for this" is the quote you'll hear with any disagreement over and over.
Not really sure if that answers your question, but I hope it at least helps. I'm kinda confused by how the question was worded.
To take it further... You know I hated Biden. But if that man told me to do a thing, I don't question it and I go do the thing... you know, the thing. Undermining a direct order is a dereliction of duty. The people elect the boss, not my stupid ass.
I'd think resign, because if the order is really fucked up then the next employees all ideally would resign as well and the idiot commander will have to do it himself. Not how it works but if the operation involves something worse than just a matter of losing money, or other dead shit, then any degree of compromise is still unacceptable (whether to rape 1 kid instead of 10 kids, I still wouldn't do it).
@Gym_Bro We're not allowed to resign. That would just get you the "You signed up for this" speech... under contract. Best bet is to appeal to some higher authority, but I've been in positions where there just isn't anyone around to appeal to. Especially when I was still overseas and they can basically do whatever they want and have complete control over their subordinates. I mean you could go AWOL and hope Russia or North Korea would take you in, but I'm going to be real about that since my job was to track those fuckers down... it's probably not going to work.
Now if it is out of line with the UCMJ, obviously you'd have the upper hand in the argument. You're still going to have to fight the people in your face and deal with the repercussions. I spent a good year doing 72 hour watches with no sleep and only getting 8 hours off in between because I refused to get a qualification... and that's what I mean by repercussions. Someone finally stepped in and people got punished for it (lightly), but they got away with it for a year still. All of that was just because some officer bro wanted to look good by having all his people get a non-required qual.
You're onto something with the keep firing thing... scare tactics are used as well, like a well blended coffee. The getting fired thing isn't so fun, because you'll go from thinking you're the shit to literally cleaning shit out of toilets... and the new guy will take one look and be reminded that could be him.
It's like deciding if you'll do the paperwork and gum the numbers up a little bit for them or start chipping paint off of pipes with the other guys. One will get you promoted and the other... well you chipped paint off of pipes and they're going to tell you to paint it, and then tell you that you all fucked up so redo it, and back to chipping paint. Cycle repeats. Best you can hope for is to score real high on the test and pray you get a MP (must promote) on your eval and hope for the best.
My point is it's not all blood and guts like the movies, it's more like the shit I just described. Although you can and would be put in situations, so prepare for them still... hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
I shit you not though @DrPepper12 if I could resign in so many occasions, I would have. That option just doesn't exist... I mean yeah you technically can, but then you'll get a lot more than paint-chipping duty. They'll accuse you of something you didn't do and feed you nothing but bread and water for 3 days. Then "Oops, that was a mistake, if you do x, y,&z, you'll be outta here."
Democrats don’t accept that a Republican President can exercise their constitutional powers and set and execute their own policies. And Democrats think it’s IK to violate the rights of their political opponents as part of implementing their agenda. That’s the crux of the problem.
If Democrats (and the federal bureaucracy is mostly Democrats) don’t like Republican policies they should resign. Attempting to obstruct them is insubordination and may be illegal, depending on the circumstances. Insubordination is grounds for termination.
It's not a partisan issue. Civil service employees also did not implement or slow walked Clinton and Obama budget priorities as well as frustrated Democratic majority congresses as well.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying that it's equal opportunity
You’re welcome to show evidence of that; however, what the bureaucrats did inTrump’s first administration was really extreme, including targeting him. Claiming moral equivalence is not accurate in the least. The federal bureaucracy is almost entirely Democrats, mostly far left types.
If a high ranking Government employee vehemently opposes POTUS policy, should they resign, because if they do not and are discovered trying to undermine Policy then they deserve the jail time they'll receive as what they will done will be sedition pure and simple.
Personally should resign with good faith for betterment of the country. To avoid bad faith sabotaging unintentionally. Basically you know you're going to half ass it but you know the larger power is still looking out for you and others
On principle of fighting anti democracy. basically against bad faith actors inside a democracy. You got to dig your heels in and stop it fight it root it out. Democracy is a powerful tool but relies solely on good faith.
I think that person has to make that call based on their own values and how important the issue is to them. There are other factors as well, such as what is the likelihood of them being able to block the policy they disagree with.
that is the nice thing about this country, you can disagree! Now if they do not do their job in the way it needs to be done, then there is just cause to terminate their employment, and their stand on policy should have nothing to do with that.
If care about the country more than themselves, they support transition so there is a good handoff. have to realize the new people may not agree with their views, and that's ok.
If you are a business owner and you have an employee who refuses to uphold company policy, you'd engage in disciplinary measures if not fire them would you not?
My answer doesn't change. Either the directive gets upheld or the employee gets fired. It is a good thing Trump isn't a Fascist, otherwise getting fired would be the best outcome.
Well obviously they should resign. They can cause collateral damage. I know Pelosi said she doesn't care if collateral damage occurs but she is bat-shit crazy.
Home > Society & Politics > Polls > If a hi-rank govt employee vehemently opposes POTUS policy, should they resign & let boss hire a pliant lackey or stay & undermine boss's policy?
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