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That’s the life of a civil servant though

By function a GS will ALWAYS be subordinate to a political appointee and there’s nothing they can do about it

I posted elsewhere that I left a govt career as a military officer precicely because of this reality. It’s like a old boring joke now that politicians are corrupt and worthless.

I will tell you from the inside that not only is it true but it’s 10 times to 100 times worse than you think it is.

I have multiple stories of operational systems, functions, whatever you wanna call them that we’re working exceptionally well had good backing, good funding and were completely wiped out because whoever became the deputy under secretary for that budget line decided they didn’t want to do it anymore. and completely shelved decades worth of work. Like literally I remember having to unplug a server that was running life-critical beacons for POWs because they weren’t being used enough.

As if that weren’t enough that same development problem then shifted over to some new hot organization that is in the politicians jurisdiction and then they start over from scratch with none of the learning from the previous admin.

There is no positive system that can be affected by the United States government

It does not exist, they cannot functionally or structurally exist, because the government of the United States but is not and has never been built on supporting citizens or the global community it is built and has always been built to support wealthy politicians and that’s all.

I’m not aware of how every other countries work but the ones I’ve seen the inside are the same

Going into the government for the “mission” is probably the most intentionally ignorant thing somebody could do given the plethora of easily accessible data proving exactly this





Somehow this country has managed to do big and bold things when it is needed. Those great systems that were dismantled got built at one point so it is theoretically possible to do good. Furthermore other countries seem to do a better job at serving their citizens so its not like effective government is impossible((look at how the EU at least gets some things that benefit their citizens even though most of it is a mess).

There has got to be some pathway to get back to that.


All those things were reactions to either disasters or radical growth.

The only way to make people act is to create a situation they can’t avoid


> a GS will ALWAYS be subordinate to a political appointee

It’s worth being specific about what is meant by “political appointee” here. That term has specific legal meaning in the context of federal staffing, and (as I understand it, not a lawyer) is not the same thing as “GS employee who was hired as part of an administration’s political agenda”.


Cause a “political” GS is not a thing hence why they have either congressional appointment or alternative pathway to political appointment



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