What's Happening, Briefly
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I understand, but it can never take on a life of its own or we cease to be a Republic. And just because they are there, does not always mean they are competent.
When the shooting started in WW2, Marshall and King, but especially Marshall, went through the senior officer ranks like a hot knife through butter. Cream rapidly rose to the top in the combat ranks.
And FDR was particularly enamored with his friends over at Foggy Bottom. Not.
Just because people had risen in the ranks, did not mean they were competent.
But besides the competency issue, which can be debated either way, the Clear & Present Danger from the bureaucracy is when it ceases to be impartial and becomes political. Witness the current problems at Justice.
This simply cannot be allowed and must be pulled out by the roots. The difference between the U.S. and a banana republic or something like Putin's Playground is that we trust the bureaucrats to do their jobs while being as apolitical as possible.
Two things kill countries - A) lack of free and fair elections, and B) highly partisan and political governments.
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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It might be useful to pass along something I've been reminding myself about lately. We can brangle all we want about who is responsible for the ills of the country; the truth is it's the unsung who keep the ship afloat. IMO, the higher ranks of strategic military, career Department of State, especially including the Foreign Service, and career Cabinet personnel of departments like Interior and Health, Education and Welfare. It is these people who are the true experts, who know through experience what works and what to do -- even as the elected class come and go, the ones that make the noise and get the press, most of them easily forgotten. And those same elected rely heavily on what is called the fourth branch, the bureaucracy, for what they need to know to do their jobs.
In other words, The Swamp.
@Jolly said in What's Happening, Briefly:
It might be useful to pass along something I've been reminding myself about lately. We can brangle all we want about who is responsible for the ills of the country; the truth is it's the unsung who keep the ship afloat. IMO, the higher ranks of strategic military, career Department of State, especially including the Foreign Service, and career Cabinet personnel of departments like Interior and Health, Education and Welfare. It is these people who are the true experts, who know through experience what works and what to do -- even as the elected class come and go, the ones that make the noise and get the press, most of them easily forgotten. And those same elected rely heavily on what is called the fourth branch, the bureaucracy, for what they need to know to do their jobs.
In other words, The Swamp.
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I understand, but it can never take on a life of its own or we cease to be a Republic. And just because they are there, does not always mean they are competent.
When the shooting started in WW2, Marshall and King, but especially Marshall, went through the senior officer ranks like a hot knife through butter. Cream rapidly rose to the top in the combat ranks.
And FDR was particularly enamored with his friends over at Foggy Bottom. Not.
Just because people had risen in the ranks, did not mean they were competent.
But besides the competency issue, which can be debated either way, the Clear & Present Danger from the bureaucracy is when it ceases to be impartial and becomes political. Witness the current problems at Justice.
This simply cannot be allowed and must be pulled out by the roots. The difference between the U.S. and a banana republic or something like Putin's Playground is that we trust the bureaucrats to do their jobs while being as apolitical as possible.
Two things kill countries - A) lack of free and fair elections, and B) highly partisan and political governments.
@Jolly said in What's Happening, Briefly:
I understand, but it can never take on a life of its own or we cease to be a Republic.
To a degree it already has, and has done for some time. True story:
President Eisenhower's first day in office.
He and his advisors enter the Oval Office. He crosses the room, sits down at the desk, rests his hand on the telephone and says, "Here I sit, elected leader of the most powerful nation in the free world. I can call anyone in Washington -- and nothing will happen."
