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It's difficult to staff with people who don't have opinions, and sometimes those opinions coincide with or bend towards other nexuses of power. But finding an

• acdha 4y ago
  There’s a difference between having opinions while sharing the goal of having a functional system and being Ajit Pai. There are many civil servants who put aside their personal politics trying to make the government succeed.
  • favorited 4y ago
    You're not wrong, but it's important to remember that Ajit Pai was not a civil servant – he was a political appointee. Civil servants are career government employees, whose jobs are not tied to an election, administration, or term in office. Civil servants necessarily put their own personal politics aside, because in all likelihood they will serve under several different political administrations. That is not the case, nor the expectation, for political appointees.
    • acdha 4y ago
      Good clarification — I was thinking the appointee level because this thread was talking about the overall direction of the FTC, and I was looking for a comparison which most people here would be familiar with where you could see the difference between people who differ in priorities versus those who seem to think the agency should not exist. I should have clarified that my next sentence was switching to refer to the people who implement policies set by the senior levels: there are many people who do not agree with all of those decisions but will try their best to implement them because they want to make the country more successful or believe that a law needs to be enforced even if someone on their side broke it.