The Bureaucracy Dissents

The title of this Politico article is practically treasonous:

Federal workers turn to encryption to thwart Trump

The article details how career bureaucrats at the various agencies in DC are coordinating among themselves with encrypted messaging to dodge laws regarding workplace communication.  In other words, they are pioneering a version of Hillary's offsite email server.  Why use secret communications within the bureaucracy?

The goal is to get their message across while not violating any rules covering workplace communications, which can be monitored by the government and could potentially get them fired.

 

The story puts the best possible spin on why these bureaucrats are engaging in this secretive communication.  They have to be able to oppose Trump if he tries to undermine the mission of the agency, tries to destroy important scientific data, or flout the law.  In fact, we know that most of the bureaucrats are Democrats (DC went 91% for Hillary) who don't want to implement Republican policy.  When the country votes for Democrat policy, the bureaucracy moves expeditiously but when the country votes for Republican policy, the bureaucracy must be dragged kicking and screaming.

 

Over at Labor, employees are coordinating in private emails to oppose the nomination for the Secretary of Labor.  Oh, that is going to make for a great working relationship if Puzder gets the job.  The same sort of opposition is surely happening at the Dept of Education regarding Betsy DeVos, at EPA for Pruitt, at Energy for Perry, etc. 

 

Thanks to civil service reform, we have non-partisan civil servants.  After all, labor statisticians can do statistics for Republicans or Democrats, right?  Of course, if someone came along who thought a particular bureaucracy needed streamlining and economizing, the current non-partisan bureaucrats might suddenly find they aren't as non-partisan as they thought.

 

It is entirely appropriate for an employee to voice disagreements.  A good boss will take note and perhaps moderate.  However, if not, the employees do what the boss instructs, provided it is legal.  If the employee cannot do this, it is time to find another job.  Assembling a resistance movement within the organization should result in immediate termination.

 

Yet again, here is evidence that the bureaucracy needs to be emptied on a regular basis.  The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (1883) succeeded in creating a bureaucratic leviathan that is barely responsive to the elected representatives of the people.  Let's go back to the spoils system.  Sure, we'll get a crop of novices every 4 years but government 'service' will cease being a career.

Biased Introduction

I listened to a short debate between Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit and a woman from Politico.  When Julian Marshall of the BBC introduced his two guests, he labeled Glenn as 'right-leaning' but offered no such label for Heather from Politico.  Before either person has said a word, it has already been established that Glenn is biased and Heather is not.  This is not accidental.  Though Politico is viewed as relatively unbiased in the Republican vs. Democrat axis, it is immensely biased in the establishment vs. outsider axis.  Politico is all about the insiders, the palace intrigue, the parliamentary plots.  How might the audience have reacted if Marshall had instead labeled Instapundit as outsider-leaning and the Politico as insider-leaning?  Now the biases of each are revealed.  That he didn't do so reveals his bias.