BS: a question of pragmitism and morality

Subject: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 31 May 17 - 06:17 AM

A question running through my head - probably with an international reach.

To what extent does a civil service (or equivalent) have to mitigate damaging effects of inept or ideology-led government on the population, not just in their own country, but the rest of the world.

In other words what has the higher prerogative - obedience or human decency?

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 May 17 - 06:37 AM

Good queestion - ANSWER HERE
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Will Fly
Date: 31 May 17 - 06:37 AM

A good question - and one which was explored in all sorts of tongue-in-cheek ways by the UK TV comedy series "Yes Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister".

In theory, the UK Civil Service works to carry out the orders of the politicians who head up the various ministries - but I know that the situation is more complex than that. The Civil Service has probably a vastly greater experience of seeing the consequences of a huge and varying range of policies by various governments over the years than the governments themselves.

The question, of course, is what is considered "inept"... and there will no doubt be all sorts of points of view on that one.

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Joe Offer
Date: 31 May 17 - 06:46 AM

That's one good aspect of the cumbersome aspect of the bureaucracy. The politicians think they can change everything when they get in power, but it takes years and years and years.

I survived Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Finally, it was Bill Clinton that privatized my job. It took 15 years, but that privatization ended in disaster 2 or 3 years ago, and the collapse cost billions of dollars. Glad I got out when I did.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Donuel
Date: 31 May 17 - 06:46 AM

personal loyalty vs. global responsibility
laws vs. leaks
reward vs. treason
profit vs US Constitution

In real time transitions were slow going from Herr Hitler to the infallible Feurer. In history the transition is instant.
Some people prefer to quit rather than be part of the problem, some do not.

Serving the aims of the most huge bigly great and powerful Ethical President in history is a matter of personal ethics. Apparently not religious ethics.

Do you feel safe to declare which side you are on?

Ii we are to believe the tweets, it all comes down to Covfefe.

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 31 May 17 - 07:19 AM

Because I work for a cooperative I can choose to work for clients who fit in with my own moral compass. I understand the dilemma faced by those in public service with good intention - they can try and find ways of winning small victories, and be able to safely do something to mitigate impact wherever the times and opportunities allow, they can attempt to make waves, then find themselves straight-jacketed,or then can turn their back on a regime that they feel they cannot be part off. The problem with the third, is then it risks public service being run by those who are driven by those who have no moral direction.

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 31 May 17 - 07:37 AM

Or they can keep their heads down, avoid controversy at all costs and settle for a quiet life. During my career as a teacher I saw large numbers of teachers who were like that. They wouldn't join a union unless it was one that promised never to take industrial action, they watched their working conditions steadily worsen and their pay suppressed and they saw a huge amount of political interference in their work and endured uneducational nonsense such as the imposition of Ofsted and SATS testing without demur. Never sufficient numbers who were willing to fight the good fight to convince the country that we had a case. The quiet-lifers look like they're the most dedicated. In reality, their lack of spine seriously weakens the profession.

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Donuel
Date: 31 May 17 - 08:04 AM

(non-speech)
, we will move ahead with all deliberate speed in the fullness of time to muzzle the predators so your children will live long and prosper.

(new speech)
,with the process of 'reconciliation' Congress will use alternative solutions to drain the swamp and be great again.

(tweet speech)
Despite the negative press covfefe.

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Greg F.
Date: 31 May 17 - 08:57 AM

I survived Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Thousands didn't. Many literally.

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Donuel
Date: 31 May 17 - 09:23 AM

Dark times call for bright measures.
Mark Twain said history does not repeat itself
it merely rhymes with its past

We are not mass arresting Jews
We are mass arresting southern immigrants

We do not have 'work camps'
We have prisons with factories

We do not attack Poland
We attack Iraq...

The go along to get along folks also died in the last chapter of WWII
Don't accept an oaf bereft of history or you'll repeat the rhyme crime

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: gillymor
Date: 31 May 17 - 10:38 AM

This is a timely question here in the U.S. where we currently have a president who is inept and dangerously unstable. Fortunately there are anonymous sources in his own White House whose loyalty lies with their country and it's institutions rather than with this self-interested buffoon.

Also, it's spelled "pragmatism" last time I checked.

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: meself
Date: 31 May 17 - 11:11 AM

I watched a documentary a few years back about a certain Russian nuclear-submarine commander who refused an order to launch a nuclear missile into the US during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I would hope that the American military men who have risen to the point that they'd be the ones receiving an order from Trump would have the same kind of integrity and clear-sightedness.

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Donuel
Date: 31 May 17 - 01:16 PM

That has happened over a dozen times, meself. Russian and Americans have both pulled us back from nuclear holocaust, some had a fairly low rank, some did not.

Everyone I know has doubts about Trump's lifelong cognitive health.
They now say it is worse than they expected.
It may not be pathological. As they say you can't cure stupid.
Although I may disagree with the old saying, he does seem cringingly dumb. GWB is less intellectually handicapped than Donald.
Goldman Saks like their presidents dumb and pliant.

Now that deep cuts to Alzheimer research are in the Trump budget, it is only fitting that Donald has the same fate as Reagan.

As Donald impugns, people who are bound by morality are LOSERS.

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: meself
Date: 31 May 17 - 01:26 PM

On another matter: why do I have the feeling that 'negative press covfefe' is a hot beverage fashionable in the Mid-East, soon to catch on in the West? Maybe Trump developed a taste for it in Saudi Arabia ....

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Greg F.
Date: 31 May 17 - 01:49 PM

Trump: the universal embarrassment that keeps on giving......

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Donuel
Date: 31 May 17 - 02:25 PM

The brain of a lizard and heart of a snake
the maniac prays for the souls he can take
His stomach is full he's not even hungry
He never is full he's a ego mad junkie
Only the most moral believes all his lies
Born without empathy he can't even cry
His fair weather friends use all the weasel words
to show their loyalty though treated like turds
"I would hope - the evil press is all fake news"
He's just sharp enough to run when he's confused
he is the devil but washed up and used.

(found stuck under a drawer of Theodor Geisel Nostradamus)
;^7

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Joe Offer
Date: 31 May 17 - 02:55 PM

My job in the Bureaucracy was to investigate applicants for sensitive government jobs. I had the most fun during the Reagan Administration because he hired so many people who had worked for him in Sacramento when he was governor - and I was doing their clearances. I got on a first-name basis with a number of Republican "old pols" that I deemed to be good sources of information, and I dug up a fair amount of dirt.

Reagan put political comissars in the regional office of every Federal agency to make the agencies "more responsive to the goals of the Administration," but Civil service rules protected me very well and I was able to do my job unimpaired.

Reagan tried to contract out some of our work to corporations, but the corporations did shoddy work and we had to do it all over again. The Clinton and Gore got off on their Re-Inventing Government kick, and our 700-employee investigations division was chosen as a privatization demonstration project. The privatization took effect in July, 1996. On a Friday, I was working for the government; and on Monday, I was doing the same work under the same people - but as an employee of a so-called employee-owned corporation. Our mid-level managers were all sent to the Wharton School of Management at the University of Pennsylvania, and they call came back scared to death of Upper Management - and our upper management came almost entirely from outside organization.

I went from being a fair-haired boy to being a problem employee. As a government employee, I had always been respected for the quality and thoroughness of my work. As a government contractor, we served only the Bottom Line, and my grandfathered-in salary and my slow thoroughness made my work far more expensive than the lick-and-a-promise investigations done by our younger star performers.

So, I got a lot of pressure from management which I did my best to ignore. Once a year, I wrote a letter to the President of the company, telling him what was wrong with our "so-called employee-owned corporation." My boss confronted me one day with a sheaf of emails in which I had said things critical of management - I had no idea they would monitor me like that. So, after 3 years, I quit. But I got a lot of stock in the company, and they sold the company to some rich Republicans shortly after I quit - and I made enough money to support myself for the rest of my life.

About 3 years ago, hackers broke into the computer system of my former employer, and compromised the security clearance records for the entire U.S. Government. My employer lost its contract and soon went out of business. I'm glad I took the money and ran when I did. And the demise of my employer was delicious vindication.

The politicians got their way with us eventually, and ironically it was Clinton and Gore who accomplished what Reagan had attempted. But in the end, I got my vindication.

Oh, and now background investigations are being done by five times as many government investigators than we had when I was a government employee.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Donuel
Date: 31 May 17 - 03:41 PM

Joe just so you know my post that appeared right after yours was a fluke, not a response. By the time I pressed submit 5 posts had accumulated including yours.

btw the guy up the street here was respondsible for his stolen laptop that had all the SS# of all US veterans. Interesting story by the way.

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Donuel
Date: 31 May 17 - 05:32 PM

Booz Allen Hamilton?

Subject: RE: BS: a question of pragmitism and morality
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Jun 17 - 11:19 AM

THE 50 THINGS TRUMP WANTS TO REVERSE
The agenda is simple

Good thing Obama didn't cure all cancer everywhere.