Unfortunately for proponents of this (facially reasonable) argument, when half the country thinks of a long-running, cross-administration, expert civil servant the image seared into our minds is "I am the Science" Anthony Fauci. So, you can add trust in the professional civil service as another casualty of the lockdown and mandate era. I remember prior to 2020 hearing a few think-tank conservatives talk about the dangers of the administrative state. Despite being a (Bush-style) conservative myself, I had no idea what they were talking about or why it mattered. Now I do!
It's hard to see the bureaucracy as a check against unrestrained executive power when it was exactly this unaccountable body that so eagerly imposed, enforced and benefited from the most unprecedented and absurd exercises in executive power of our lifetimes. (Four years later they are still giving each other awards and working from home.) Far from employing their objective expertise, they seemed to put nearly all their energy into censoring dissent through tech and media backchannels and "taking down" dissenters, like the authors of the Great Barrington Declarations. (Sometimes they had time for magazine puff pieces too.)
But I'd add that even if one does see the entrenched bureaucratic state as an important check against ill-advised executive actions, certainly the judiciary is an even more fundamental (and unlike the bureaucracy, Constitutionally-provided) check of this sort. Yet in the last week Biden proposed truly radical changes to the Supreme Court that would have the direct result of making them far more beholden to Presidential politics and political pressure generally. I'd worry about that more than Schedule F.
Okay, we can all agree that the "Civil Service" should be a meritocratic hierarchy, but what is not explained in this article is why these bureaucratic civil servants, not only in America but also in most Western democracies, are heavily staffed by those with leftist ideology? Is this just a myth or is it a fact? The fact that Republicans believe this to be so, points to the reality of the type of person drawn to and selected for these positions in the civil service and even termed the "Blob" in the UK and is part of the "Swamp" in America.
"Run-of-the-mill hack," "opportunists," "army of such-ups," "cronies?" Is this reasoned persuasion or rank ad hominem? How did this pass editorial review?
What else do you call people who would get into a job based only on their loyalty to the head guy? No need to actually know anything about the job at hand, just report to work, fire those under you who don't jump-to and, well, get busy sucking-up to those above you.
All pretty frightening but completely unbalanced. The state has already been seized to advance policies like climate change and, more dubiously, social and political equity which involves job quotas for often incompetent or biased people everywhere in government and public life. This has all been done nefariously without full debate in electoral cycles or city halls and school councils.
I thought Persuasion was supposed to explore both sides of all issues and promote dialogue. The Democrats are no innocents in the use of undemocratic tactics to win battles and push divisive measures via executive discretion. You should commission a paper to examine this entire issue critically and propose ways forward for our democracy
An imperative to protect an entrenched administrative caste (or nomenklatura) is an ideology unto itself. Therein lies the flaw: the interest of that caste is in its own power and recognition. That is not liberalism.
“The technical necessity for organization, as Robert Michel showed long ago, sets in motion an inevitable tendency toward oligarchy. The leadership after a time is bound to have separate interests from the rank-and-file…. No loopholes have yet been discovered in the iron law of oligarchy.”
What a bunch of ridiculous rubbish. I recommend you spend more time looking for and writing about things that are factual, rather than half-baked, paranoid speculations generated entirely on a bad case of TDS.
This is based on mistrust in the American electorate and the American electoral system. The former, because it assumes that it'll be easy to hire people who will do 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 in positions of civil authority and that their colleagues will either support them or stay silent. The latter, because it assumes that, having experienced the supposed horrors of such a situation, we won't be able to change it.
Now, I'll admit that Americans have done a lot to earn mistrust. Potential Republican excesses have been described here in lurid detail and Democratic excesses have been apparent in COVID management, taking gender-ideology and DEI steamrollers to our education, civil service and military systems and promoting Title IX kangaroo courts.
Still, despite these horrors, real and imagined, it would be wrong to claim that we're living under a dictatorship or that the next election, or the one after that, can't right the ship.
For some historical perspective on this, check out Ron Chernow's biography of President Grant, it's a great book, and it was during Grant's presidency that the issue of merit and civil service came to the fore, in many ways.
Possibly these types of jobs in State and Intelligence and really every Agency attract thoughtful, intelligent people and these types of people care about their fellow humans and want to make life better for them.. These type of people would generally find Trump to be horrifying.
Unfortunately for proponents of this (facially reasonable) argument, when half the country thinks of a long-running, cross-administration, expert civil servant the image seared into our minds is "I am the Science" Anthony Fauci. So, you can add trust in the professional civil service as another casualty of the lockdown and mandate era. I remember prior to 2020 hearing a few think-tank conservatives talk about the dangers of the administrative state. Despite being a (Bush-style) conservative myself, I had no idea what they were talking about or why it mattered. Now I do!
It's hard to see the bureaucracy as a check against unrestrained executive power when it was exactly this unaccountable body that so eagerly imposed, enforced and benefited from the most unprecedented and absurd exercises in executive power of our lifetimes. (Four years later they are still giving each other awards and working from home.) Far from employing their objective expertise, they seemed to put nearly all their energy into censoring dissent through tech and media backchannels and "taking down" dissenters, like the authors of the Great Barrington Declarations. (Sometimes they had time for magazine puff pieces too.)
But I'd add that even if one does see the entrenched bureaucratic state as an important check against ill-advised executive actions, certainly the judiciary is an even more fundamental (and unlike the bureaucracy, Constitutionally-provided) check of this sort. Yet in the last week Biden proposed truly radical changes to the Supreme Court that would have the direct result of making them far more beholden to Presidential politics and political pressure generally. I'd worry about that more than Schedule F.
Okay, we can all agree that the "Civil Service" should be a meritocratic hierarchy, but what is not explained in this article is why these bureaucratic civil servants, not only in America but also in most Western democracies, are heavily staffed by those with leftist ideology? Is this just a myth or is it a fact? The fact that Republicans believe this to be so, points to the reality of the type of person drawn to and selected for these positions in the civil service and even termed the "Blob" in the UK and is part of the "Swamp" in America.
"Run-of-the-mill hack," "opportunists," "army of such-ups," "cronies?" Is this reasoned persuasion or rank ad hominem? How did this pass editorial review?
What else do you call people who would get into a job based only on their loyalty to the head guy? No need to actually know anything about the job at hand, just report to work, fire those under you who don't jump-to and, well, get busy sucking-up to those above you.
All pretty frightening but completely unbalanced. The state has already been seized to advance policies like climate change and, more dubiously, social and political equity which involves job quotas for often incompetent or biased people everywhere in government and public life. This has all been done nefariously without full debate in electoral cycles or city halls and school councils.
I thought Persuasion was supposed to explore both sides of all issues and promote dialogue. The Democrats are no innocents in the use of undemocratic tactics to win battles and push divisive measures via executive discretion. You should commission a paper to examine this entire issue critically and propose ways forward for our democracy
An imperative to protect an entrenched administrative caste (or nomenklatura) is an ideology unto itself. Therein lies the flaw: the interest of that caste is in its own power and recognition. That is not liberalism.
THE PROBLEM, STATED SUCCINCTLY:
“The technical necessity for organization, as Robert Michel showed long ago, sets in motion an inevitable tendency toward oligarchy. The leadership after a time is bound to have separate interests from the rank-and-file…. No loopholes have yet been discovered in the iron law of oligarchy.”
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
What a bunch of ridiculous rubbish. I recommend you spend more time looking for and writing about things that are factual, rather than half-baked, paranoid speculations generated entirely on a bad case of TDS.
This is based on mistrust in the American electorate and the American electoral system. The former, because it assumes that it'll be easy to hire people who will do 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 in positions of civil authority and that their colleagues will either support them or stay silent. The latter, because it assumes that, having experienced the supposed horrors of such a situation, we won't be able to change it.
Now, I'll admit that Americans have done a lot to earn mistrust. Potential Republican excesses have been described here in lurid detail and Democratic excesses have been apparent in COVID management, taking gender-ideology and DEI steamrollers to our education, civil service and military systems and promoting Title IX kangaroo courts.
Still, despite these horrors, real and imagined, it would be wrong to claim that we're living under a dictatorship or that the next election, or the one after that, can't right the ship.
I really like this piece.
For some historical perspective on this, check out Ron Chernow's biography of President Grant, it's a great book, and it was during Grant's presidency that the issue of merit and civil service came to the fore, in many ways.
Possibly these types of jobs in State and Intelligence and really every Agency attract thoughtful, intelligent people and these types of people care about their fellow humans and want to make life better for them.. These type of people would generally find Trump to be horrifying.