Richmond, October 20, 2009
     
              This subject comes up a lot, for we often mention, and recommend strongly, that public officials, all the way from those who are elected to the pettiest of bureaucrats and factotums and other civil service hirelings, be kept in constant fear of their employers.
              Us.
              Actually, this a natural condition, having nothing to do with violence, even vocal violence. It is normal, even expected that a man who is hired by another is constantly looking over his shoulder, worried or fearful that the boss, or his agent (a supervisor) might catch him doing his job poorly, or dawdling, etc.
              Indeed, without this element of fear the hireling will usually let nature take its course and set off on a course of idle self-indulgence and daydreaming that may not only cost him his job, but his boss a lot of money in lost production, or damage to the goods or customer relations.
             In the private sector, the boss, whose own money is invested, is aware of this shortcoming in human nature, and tries to keep as many hawks hovering overhead as is economically possible to keep screwing up or screwing off to a minumum.
             But not so government, where this shortcoming is even celebrated (if you stop to think about it). There are several reasons for this, which I won't go into, but primarily, the principal managers haven't a cent of their own money invested, and this attitude is soon, after a  probationary period, passed onto the rank and file white collars. So you would think the Rule of Vigilance should go double, no, quadruple for the petty bureaucrat, especially since his job is mostly defined by sitting down, and his natural appetites were in finding just such a fat, cushy, sit-down position in the first place. Staring off into space, or a computer screen, playing Solitaire, or (it seems) peeking at porn, makes up a good part of a bureaucrat's day, umbrella'd by a job description that was defined by a higher ranking bureaucrat whose only purpose in creating it in the first place was to be able to add a feather (staff employee) in his/her cap. (Parkinson's Law) . Most bureaucrats work in regimes where no more than 70%-80% are actually needed to carry out the assigned mission of the regime. (You can look it up.) So none of them are entirely sure why they are there, what they are supposed to be doing...at least for eight solid hours, maybe more like two-three...but they do know this job, this sweeeet! gig is worth fighting (and killing, as Hitler proved) for.
            This is what you get without hawks.
            So what they also know is that the boss, the real bosses, are several miles, even several hundred miles, and at least one security check point away. This is also sweet. The snooping supervisor in the front office, or his boss, upstairs, they fear the hawks...but only just a little. After all, they have the best job protection plan this side of the NEA. The real bosses, Us, they fear not at all.

            It is this lack of fear that has brought us to this point in American history, for almost all politics involves their care and feeding. For you see, our elected officials, who are supposed to be our guardians, our bloodhounds, our eyes at the keyhole and our ears at the transom, have become their protectors rather than our defenders.
            So we need to notch this "fear" thing up a grade or three. And here, it gets personal. We have to put a face and a name to the faceless and nameless bureaucrat.
            When we can, we (SICCM) do this for a living, since, next to dancing with a Greek man, it is about the most fun a fellow can have with his clothes on. So, as to specifics I have to remain silent.
            But I can remind you of the "American template" for re-establishing this "fear factor" in public officials. You've heard terms such as "tarred and feathered" and "run out of town on a rail". Well, these 19th Century citizens' actions were reserved for crooked card sharks, pettifoggers (shyster lawyers) and crafty bureaucrats who either got caught with their hands in the till, or worse, refused or failed to carry out their sworn duties. These were things that could not wait until the next election to remedy.
           This is what I call the appropriate "fear threshold" public officials should feel about their employers (Us), only I am not suggesting that any citizen's group (even I would call them a "mob", right alongside MSNBC), should break into a person's house, and drag him/her into the street, dip him/her into (only mildly warm) oil and cover him/her with chicken feather.
           As nice as it sounds, this doesn't need to be done. One, it is harmful, and two it is illegal.
           But what is not harmful or illegal is to let a bureaucrat who is not doing his job correctly know that such a thing might happen. That is the Fear Factor. And it is easy.
           You see, most bureaucrats know when they are supposed to do something ...but didn't. Or wasn't supposed to do something. but did. This failure could be out of laziness, incompetence, or mercenary intent; no matter, all have a guilty state of mind. The dark truth is that the public employers (Us) can never know for sure (unless they brag about it on Facebook), so we have to dispense the "fear factor" across the spectrum equally...assuming the worst (crime), not the least (laziness). I repeat, we have to assume the worst in this political climate.
           This guilty state of mind is important, for between Phase One, the guilty act or omission and Phase Three, that moment when the door is kicked down and the malefactor drug into the street, is Phase Two, the knowledge that a public airing of just who they are has occurred.. You can't imagine what this means to a bureaucrat...exposure. Hell, he could live next door to you for ten years, you only knowing he was down at the county building, never knowing he was the guy who signed off on turning down your building permit for a new garage.
           Bureaucrats try as much as possible, even within their own offices, to remain anonymous. Their rice bowl, the sweeet! gig, is all that matters. Unless unusually ambitious, they don't even want the GS-14's upstairs to know their names. Never draw attention to yourself. (I've known factory managers who've paid thousands of dollars to the Police Relief Fund to keep their names out of the newspaper over a lousy $190 DUI...while the county judge built a home on the lake from the proceeds...so this impulse runs deep.) Having their name tied to any public act is instant chill for bureaucrats. They don't want their signature on anything controversial....for the public or their bosses two levels upstairs to see, much less the mayor, the board of supervisors or the media. Most of their professional lives is spent in avoiding accountability...or taking any risk. (It's in the water, so please don't read their mission statement then become judgmental. They can't help it.)
          Fighting back: Break down that wall and remove from the bureaucrat 1) his anonymity and 2) the protection provided by his unions, as when the public (Us) declares in public they are guilty of a wrongful act and they realize there is no union (bureaucratic) recourse. When you post their name on YouTube, or GreatAmerican Zeroes.com, or Facebook, something local, something for everyone to see,  you don't have to kick down their door. Every night they will go to bed thinking it's about to be kicked down anyway. They may even move to the next county. They may begin sneaking to work incognito. They may buy an old '79 Datsun from an illegal at the flea market to drive them there.
         That's how it works with the guilty state of mind. Publicly "out" them and nine times out of ten they'll start doing what they were supposed to do, or stop doing what they weren't. No one likes to see his/her name in the local press, or on Facebook or a website for great American/Kansas/Lawrence zeroes. (Once done, it's the other 10% you have to seine out through this net to identify as true enemies and crimnals. These are the Enemy's core constituencies. But once isolated, they are easier to target, and once thery can can feel the gaze of the hawks overhead, their effecrtiveness is reduced by three quarters.)
          See where I'm going?
      
          With this in mind, between now and October, 2010, we need to focus our attention on the vote-stealers at the county and state levels. Some are assisted by ACORN, others work alone, "in the dark" as we say. They can steal or deny voters in many ways, and in some safe precincts, just a few, they may do it just to keep in practice. (We noted this practice in the last election, where votes were stolen for no reason...other than possibly to see whether it could be done or not...and where those votes wouldn't affect the outcome, went un-investigated. This is also how Al Qaeda operates. Push, test, push, test.) State and county voting officials should be held to the same standard that a bank cashier has to be accountable for...down to the penny...when they open and close their drawer. Impose that sanction from now til late summer 2010, from an unyielding and unflinching hawk-like public, and they will toe the line. A few will also suddenly quit and move to Minnesota.
          This should be a nationwide effort, but carried out at the most local of levels.
          More later.
VB