4 ms·

To realize that the real state acts "deep state" like without requiring nefarious or shadowy behavior. Simply make unelected people have lifelong careers withi

To realize that the real state acts "deep state" like without requiring nefarious or shadowy behavior. Simply make unelected people have lifelong careers within governmental organizations. Snowden talks about this in his book. Yeah a new ~puppet~ figure head gets elected every 4 years. But what about all the layers of folks who actually perform the "Government" actions? They are the same people for decades, they say yes or no to actions you can/cannot take, they influence in their every choice they true meaning of policies...

roywiggins 3y ago
The modern civil service is still better than the old "spoils system." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system It was reformed for a reason! Putting politicians in charge of all hiring and firing turned out to be bad for everyone.
- sl0tr4cer 3y ago
  and having public sector unions is likewise bad for everyone
  - Dah00n 3y ago
    How's unions bad? Outside US-style Mafia unions of course. Nordic country unions are not at all the same and I see those as 100% win.
    - HDThoreaun 3y ago
      The leader of my citys police union is a convicted domestic abuser, was in a relationship with a student at the high school he was paid to protect, is a proud qanoner, and was fired by the city 3 times. Every time he was fired the union appealed and he kept his job. He has won multiple elections since the allegations came to light. The problem with public sector unions is that our last mayoral election was cop union sponsored candidate versus teacher union sponsored candidate. Literally both the candidates were lawyers for the unions directly before they started the campaign. If you think either group has a sweetheart contract you are shit out of luck, because the unions completely control politics here. Unions work when the group they are bargaining with has competing interests. When the union negotiates against itself everyone else suffers.
      - digging 3y ago
        None of those serious issues are intrinsic problems with public sector unions, though. Most of them would exist even without the union playing a role, and a well structured union could also be preventing them.
        HDThoreaun 3y ago
        Cops not being able to be fired is 100% because of the union. Every time they negotiate a new contract and the city tries to put in the ability to fire people the police refuse to arrest anyone.
        digging 3y ago
        Well, we don't need to get into details, but most pro-union folks I know don't consider police unions to be workers' unions. Either way, as I said, it's not an intrinsic property of unions. It's that way because police unions exist to hold the public hostage, not because unions are bad.
        HDThoreaun 3y ago
        Holding the public hostage is an intrinsic property of public sector unions. That's the leverage they hold. If they don't like the deal being offered they can stop working and because their roles are so important that holds the public hostage.
        digging 3y ago
        That's how strikes work in general, whether the job is public or private. Transportation is mostly privatized, but if the workers strike we're all going to feel it to some degree. That's the point. The difference with police unions is that they work in the inverse - we're in danger when they do work. Police hold us hostage by doing their jobs (badly) and offer mob-like protection.
        Dah00n 3y ago
lilsoso 3y ago
This is a satirical point of the British TV show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister. The high ranking civil servants, with nearly permanent positions, are in charge. The elected officials think they are in charge.
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
  > The elected officials think they are in charge Nah, the smart ones know they're not. They're just keeping up appearances. Somewhat like those stories about being chased by wolves through the snow. Once in a while one who got ideas is tossed out as a distraction (Liz Truss, anyone?).
shadowgovt 3y ago
This is working as intended. At least in the United States. Early in the history of the country, we experimented with evicting the entire government when party changed hands, all the way to individual post offices. It turned out to be ridiculously inefficient. It turns out institutional knowledge is extremely important, and institutions are generally terrible at writing everything down that the next person will need. Imagine trying to conduct a business with 95% turnover every 2 years. As a result, we intentionally established standards for employment and safeguards against arbitrary firing of unelected bureaucratic officials. The elected officials have control over setting policy and, in the long-term, deciding the criteria by which the unelected officials retain their jobs. None of this implies that the unelected officials are unaccountable. They are held accountable by our elected officials. But that process does require the elected officials to do their homework and, to some extent, understand the Chesterton's fences that exist in the system. A failure mode I observe is that we seem to keep trying to solve the problem by electing conspiracy nuts who are then basically ignored because they try to approach the problem of reining in unelected bureaucracy from the "Why don't you show us the secret UFO tapes?" direction instead of the "The president needs a full accounting of how many terabytes of data have been stored for terrorism fighting purposes" direction.
- nunobrito 3y ago
  UFOs are not conspiracy: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/whistleblower-ufo-alien-tech-spacecraft https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/whistleblower-... It was quite a hard path over decades to finally admit a reality that was obvious since decades. That realization has far more impact to mankind than petty politics.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    Noise like this is why the NSA doesn't get held accountable for spying on Americans. Who has time to worry about privacy breaches and mass surveillance when aliens are real? It would be harder to imagine an easier psyop to pull off. The only thing that strains credibility is that apparently it works.

roywiggins 3y ago

The modern civil service is still better than the old "spoils system." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system It was reformed for a reason! Putting politicians in charge of all hiring and firing turned out to be bad for everyone.

sl0tr4cer 3y ago
and having public sector unions is likewise bad for everyone
- Dah00n 3y ago
  How's unions bad? Outside US-style Mafia unions of course. Nordic country unions are not at all the same and I see those as 100% win.
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    The leader of my citys police union is a convicted domestic abuser, was in a relationship with a student at the high school he was paid to protect, is a proud qanoner, and was fired by the city 3 times. Every time he was fired the union appealed and he kept his job. He has won multiple elections since the allegations came to light. The problem with public sector unions is that our last mayoral election was cop union sponsored candidate versus teacher union sponsored candidate. Literally both the candidates were lawyers for the unions directly before they started the campaign. If you think either group has a sweetheart contract you are shit out of luck, because the unions completely control politics here. Unions work when the group they are bargaining with has competing interests. When the union negotiates against itself everyone else suffers.
    - digging 3y ago
      None of those serious issues are intrinsic problems with public sector unions, though. Most of them would exist even without the union playing a role, and a well structured union could also be preventing them.
      - HDThoreaun 3y ago
        Cops not being able to be fired is 100% because of the union. Every time they negotiate a new contract and the city tries to put in the ability to fire people the police refuse to arrest anyone.
        digging 3y ago
        Well, we don't need to get into details, but most pro-union folks I know don't consider police unions to be workers' unions. Either way, as I said, it's not an intrinsic property of unions. It's that way because police unions exist to hold the public hostage, not because unions are bad.
        HDThoreaun 3y ago
        Holding the public hostage is an intrinsic property of public sector unions. That's the leverage they hold. If they don't like the deal being offered they can stop working and because their roles are so important that holds the public hostage.
        digging 3y ago
        That's how strikes work in general, whether the job is public or private. Transportation is mostly privatized, but if the workers strike we're all going to feel it to some degree. That's the point. The difference with police unions is that they work in the inverse - we're in danger when they do work. Police hold us hostage by doing their jobs (badly) and offer mob-like protection.
        Dah00n 3y ago

lilsoso 3y ago

This is a satirical point of the British TV show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister. The high ranking civil servants, with nearly permanent positions, are in charge. The elected officials think they are in charge.

B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
> The elected officials think they are in charge Nah, the smart ones know they're not. They're just keeping up appearances. Somewhat like those stories about being chased by wolves through the snow. Once in a while one who got ideas is tossed out as a distraction (Liz Truss, anyone?).

shadowgovt 3y ago

This is working as intended. At least in the United States. Early in the history of the country, we experimented with evicting the entire government when party changed hands, all the way to individual post offices. It turned out to be ridiculously inefficient. It turns out institutional knowledge is extremely important, and institutions are generally terrible at writing everything down that the next person will need. Imagine trying to conduct a business with 95% turnover every 2 years. As a result, we intentionally established standards for employment and safeguards against arbitrary firing of unelected bureaucratic officials. The elected officials have control over setting policy and, in the long-term, deciding the criteria by which the unelected officials retain their jobs. None of this implies that the unelected officials are unaccountable. They are held accountable by our elected officials. But that process does require the elected officials to do their homework and, to some extent, understand the Chesterton's fences that exist in the system. A failure mode I observe is that we seem to keep trying to solve the problem by electing conspiracy nuts who are then basically ignored because they try to approach the problem of reining in unelected bureaucracy from the "Why don't you show us the secret UFO tapes?" direction instead of the "The president needs a full accounting of how many terabytes of data have been stored for terrorism fighting purposes" direction.

nunobrito 3y ago
UFOs are not conspiracy: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/whistleblower-ufo-alien-tech-spacecraft https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/whistleblower-... It was quite a hard path over decades to finally admit a reality that was obvious since decades. That realization has far more impact to mankind than petty politics.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  Noise like this is why the NSA doesn't get held accountable for spying on Americans. Who has time to worry about privacy breaches and mass surveillance when aliens are real? It would be harder to imagine an easier psyop to pull off. The only thing that strains credibility is that apparently it works.