Should I be looking for a different job?
The resistance infiltrating the enemy base in disguise can get a lot of work done. Especially if it’s long term and you don’t even need to sneak around.
Even just a low level functionary who’s not a nazi or a terrible person makes my time dealing with a government agency better. There’s not an automatic moral imperative to bounce.
So assuming you’re an American. I hate to break it to you but your government has done way worse stuff than elect an orange guy. I seriously doubt everything done holds up to the slightest scrutiny to your moral and ethical code. The only difference is now you are aware of it. If it was me I would ask myself if I felt guilty for the work I had done already. If I did I would stop if not I wouldn’t.
The slightest effort at extrapolation makes this whole idea monumentally short-sighted.
A few months ago a german activist (I think it was Arne Semsrot) wrote a book about how low and middle positions in government agencies can work against the governments intentions in case of a extreme right wing takeover by the AFD. Though I don’t know, if it was translated to english or would be 1 to 1 applicable to the USA.
The answers to both of your questions are probably yes it’s okay, and yes you should probably be looking for another job.
Are you morally/ethically okay with your agency’s mission? With your role in it? If you are, then the new administration’s policies may not be reason enough to leave. You pretty much have to work somewhere. If the answer is no, you probably would have already been looking for another job.
Should you be looking for another job? Probably, depending on what your agency is and it’s mission. If TFG and Project2025 have their way, many federal government agencies will be defunded and/or privatized, and pretty much toothless when it comes to enforcement. We already saw what happened to the EPA under the first Trump administration. If yours is in danger of that you should be preparing a backup plan. I wouldn’t want to give up a government job, but I would want to be ready if I got RIF’d, or if I got fed up with the bullshit.Do you feel that your “customers” are the administration or the general public? Whom do you feel that you are serving in your job? Do you feel that the directions given to you by your administration are legal and safe and reasonable? Do you feel that the directions given to you by your administration cause a disadvantage to yourself or your “customers”?
You could try to clutch at straws to justify staying in your job. You might be able to reasonably determine that your feelings for your administration don’t affect the performance of your job. Maybe staying in your job is the best way to benefit your “customers” and obstruct the administration.
Only you can decide how you feel and what is an appropriate match for your own moral and ethical position.
If you quit another will take your place. Possibly a conservative. You’d do more good holding that seat than giving it up.
Yup. Watch The Good Place, then ask again.
What is the difference between a rebel and a revolutionary?
A plan?
Maybe, but I think it may also be possible they mean the same thing but from different perspectives or maybe whether you are willing to cross some line like dying or killing for a cause. There was a disagreement around 100 years ago when WW2 ended between philosophers Sartre and Camus about how to be free and whether violence and murder can be justified for political goals. Camus supported the French in WW2 but did not support political violence outside of war, in The Rebel he rejects revolutionary violence as it undermines/betrays yourself and is utopian and absolutist. Sartre thought violence could be justified for the right cause like communism to build and maintain a system for justice and freedom until it was obvious the tankies had taken over during the revolution reaction in Hungary. Sartre became an apologist for Soviet revolutionary violence until '56 and Camus was an advocate for nonviolent rebellion. I don’t know what the answer is or if there is one.
Dude, if you quit, a Maga is taking your place. The last thing we need is more extremist infiltration of the government.
Stay, we need you. Your country needs you.
If there is any shady things happenning, we need you to be a whisleblower.
If you’re working for the government, you had no morals and integrity before.
Huh? This is an edgy thing to say.
We need taxes filed and mail delivered. Environment monitored and earth science conducted. Etc. There’s countless jobs that are apolitical and vital to everything worth anything in a modern society.
taxes filed
The state forces peasants to this and they have to use corpo soft slop to do it…
Even in Europe they have government employees “filing” the taxes on their end. It’s just much better. Every country needs a tax department like the IRS.
Like, are you suggesting you do ALL the work of processing and accruing taxes and the IRS employees do nothing?
I’m not defending the US system where citizens have to prepare their own taxes, but the implied suggestion that IRS employees don’t do something critical is silly.
US peasant has legal obligation to file taxes. He or she must do this.
Funny enough you ask this because if you fuck up your taxes, IRS will correct when you try to submit. They pretty much have all the data for large section society, ie wage worker with basic retirement accounts. So they know the numbers. So technically US know how much most must pay.
Tax software lobby however forces this system and blocked attempts at models like EU for decades. There is some limp dick try for low income people that is being worked but it is literally designed to work for broke ass pleb with basic w2 income.
Yappin. I acknowledged the US system is not ideal, the point is we need an IRS and frankly need them to do MORE to be more like other countries.
Issue not the IRS, the issue is the tax code written by regime whores serving oligarchs.
🗣️
Not the point of this thread. The point is the value of government employees existing.
No quit
No one can answer that question but you.
Of course. But one can hope for insight and help in answering it, no?
I’d say it’s more important than ever. Leaving just allows the “yes” men to get more power and gives more control to the regime you dislike/disagree with.
Resist
This. Try to stay until you are forcibly replaced or your agency has its mission drastically changed.
Yes it is - you can continue to do good in the ways you can manage.
Until they get purged for not towing the party line.
Better to do the work they can to help until they’re forced out.
Hopefully they are financially stable and have good enough job prospects to just be able to find a new job of equal pay in their area fairly quickly on a timetable of ‘i have no idea when i am going to be blacklisted’.
Also - government jobs often have to offer severance for non-performance related termination.
Unless they just rewrite those rules/regulations to avoid that.
Which is their whole plan.
I work for the USPS. We took an oath to the constitution and it’s very easy to understand why. The Postal Service is a necessary component of democracy as long as it remains true to what its supposed to be, which is a pipeline of information between any two points in the world. We can debate the legitimacy of that need after the internet, but there are vital services the USPS provides that the internet can’t.
I don’t like the direction things are going, but i still want to be a part of that. All i can do is make sure the mail I get is getting where it’s supposed to be.
If you believe in what you do and that’s important to you, then stick it out. If it’s not, then that’s fine, but you may want to get out for your mental health.
Thank you for your service
Haha, i never served and this is just a job. It just happens to be one that i feel has some contribution to democracy and i try to hold on to that.
Thanks, though, if this isn’t meant in jest.
You’re a public servant. That’s cool
Delivering the mail is every bit - if not more - important than killing foreigners for oil
Drag doesn’t know how they do things in America, but in drag’s country, the post is full of spam. No decent person uses it, it’s all just corporations and politicians trying to advertise. It’s a vector for capitalism to inject more BS into our lives. On that ground drag opposes the existence of the post office. It would be okay if they had controls against abuse of the system, but they don’t.
drag opposes the existence of the post office.
If speaking in the 3rd person didn’t show the caliber of mind you’re working with “opposing the existence of the post office” definitely would.
Yeah, there’s a lot a that here, too. But the way or post works is that no tax money goes to support it. It’s fully supported by the customers that use it.
Even when the post office turns a profit, congress will take that money and/or downsize the labor force.
Thank you. That’s a very considered response.
I’m serious about the mental health thing, though. I’ve had to develope a certain mind set to keep things from driving me nuts: incompetent supervisors and lazy coworkers. The unions really protect us, but the system most definitely gets abused and management is hamstrung to do anything about it i guess.
To me, work is a circus. People do stupid sit? I laugh and keep doing what I’m supposed to be doing.
