Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

The U.S. President appoints about 3,000 high-level people in the U.S. Government. This includes all the cabinet members, the entire National Security Staff, the directors of the CIA, NSA, DIA, etc. He can fire most of them at will. The Buck Stops Here, as Harry Truman's desk sign used to say.

The quality of a president's cabinet appointments determines how well the government functions during their presidency. The problem is, where do you get 3,000 people able to perform at that level? They're usually drawn from the usual suspects. When that's not the case, the result looks like amateur hour. How many people are qualified to be Secretary of State? The pool of people who have been around enough countries and political leaders to operate at that level is small.

The role of the White House staff varies from administration to administration. Eisenhower probably had the most effective staff in many decades. He knew how to make a military staff work together, and modeled the White House on that basis. Eisenhower was very good at putting the right person in the right job. (How Eisenhower deployed Montgomery and Patton is a famous example.)

None of the recent presidents have had that kind of experience.

This isn't about white house staff or the teams that presidents select - this is about the huge bureaucracies run by unelected civil servants who usually reached their position through a combination of nepotism, cover-my-ass, corruption, and coercion. I know that sounds like an overly cynical view, but from first-hand experience and knowledge, it's just the way things are. There are a few who fill these posts and actually wish to do their jobs well, but they're the exception, not the rule, and are being increasingly pushed out - most are there to line their pockets and bask in their own perceived glory.

The whole democratic process is just smoke and mirrors to prevent the populace from revolting - and I think we all know it - which means that it can't work as it does now for much longer - hence the increasing militarisation of police, creeping liberty reduction, and all the rest - as they know this too, and power, once attained, is clung to at pretty much any cost, by the kind of individual to whom power over others appeals.

The Iron Law of Bureaucracy at work:

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

I'd contend that the problem is the "secret" part, rather than the "double government" part.

Maybe that's the problem with western governments? They have erroneously interpreted their job to be "running the country", and the typical elected official is not qualified to do this? Perhaps they should cede the running of the country to the public service and recognise that their true role as an elected official is to keep the public service transparent, accountable and honest?

The problem with the above is that once a government sacrifices transparency, as most seem to have done, they have no useful purpose and have to resort to (incompetently) trying to run things to justify their existence.

In my perspective it is often expediency; it takes a large and sustained effort to redirect a civil service as large as the US, kind of like trying to steer a 400m long container vessel.

Here's a look at one of the most extreme bureaucracies the world ever produced, it is the result of expediency and unchecked power combined with ideology over evidence; http://www.galorebot.com/bureaucracy/essay.htm

Keeping such large organisations in check requires the fortitude to keep hitting your head against a brick wall while also remaining sharp minded and sane; all the while making progress.

> it takes a large and sustained effort to redirect a civil service as large as the US, kind of like trying to steer a 400m long container vessel.

That's why Thomas Jefferson and others straight out of Enlightenment wanted for the Federal government top be very limited and for the law-making power to be left to the states. Each US state is much smaller than the US.

"How many people are qualified to be Secretary of State? The pool of people who have been around enough countries and political leaders to operate at that level is small."

That's actually an interesting question, what sort of qualifications are needed to do a job like that

I actually think that the universe of people who could do those jobs is actually pretty large

the real limiter is that if you pick someone too far out of the box, you're going to take political fire for it

like Bush did when he tried to nominate Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court

in contrast, when you nominate a known entity, ie Clinton to Secretary of State, they have the political clout to keep unhappy hopefuls (and their bidders) quiet

> I actually think that the universe of people who could do those jobs is actually pretty large

I'd like to believe that, but it's not just a matter of inherent capability, talent and intelligence.

A very large part of the qualifications is experience with bureaucracies, politics, management, power-games, diplomacy. I'm talking 2 decades of experience, at least. Not the kind of stuff you can learn in school (mainly because school just doesn't last long enough), and definitely not the kind of stuff you can pick up on the job, no matter how talented and super bright somebody is.

I kind of wish it wasn't sometimes (although other times I'm not so sure of the consequences..) but the fact of the matter is that medium-smart experienced politicians are going to out-politic a super-smart rookie every time.

He can fire most of them at will.

Except that he's dependent on them to protect his very hide. Or in the case of the heads of military and intelligence agencies, he's desperate just to have someone he can talk to. That's why he keeps hanging on to Brennan, for example.

This is why the US should be devolved into five or ten sovereign entities with free movement and a customs union, like the EU. That would break up the pernicious parts of an imperial government and keep the good properties.

Or, you know, 50 semi-sovereign entities, like it was originally intended to be, before the civil war.

I think anything that gives more power to the states, and unburdens the federal government from that responsibility would generally be a win-win for everybody.

The problem with that is that it leaves the military industrial complex intact. That's what needs breaking up.

It's a shame that "states' rights" has largely been associated with slavery (or these days, other hot-button issues like abortion). I think America has benefitted greatly from per-state experimentation of policy and governance, and it's high time the pendulum swung back their way, even if the federal government still has an important role to play.

In addition to the benefit of 50 petri dishes to gather data on what works and what doesn't, there's a human rights component, in that it's more feasible to move to a new state than a new country if policies are disagreeable. While not a perfect solution (especially for the poor), it does move further along the spectrum towards an active social contract, where people literally vote with their feet, rather than a passive one, where you're stuck with the rules of wherever you happen to be born.

And further down, for that matter. The closer the government is to the people, the more representative it will be. With, y'know, caveats...

There is a downside to too much power in individual states: the "race to the bottom" where capital can make states compete for resources and jobs by allocating them to whoever makes the most concessions, whether it's tax breaks, labor laws, environmental protections, etc. (We live with this already on the world scale; our protections on labor are great, but have mostly resulted in exporting poor working conditions overseas rather than eliminating them.)

That said, the more local the government is, the more effective and responsible it tends to be: each vote counts more, constituents resemble humans rather than numbers, and it's a more manageable scope to engage in the nitty-gritty of governance. Balancing this reality with the benefits of collective solidarity is what Charlie Stross would call a Wicked Problem [1].

[1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/07/wicked-1...

Those would be a few of the caveats, to be sure. Though not, themselves, entirely unqualified negatives.

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