At what point does it become unethical to work for the US Government?

Great Debates
21

That’s easy to say but when you are given legitimate (or at least enforceable) orders or direction to things you find ethically or morally wrong you are either put to the test of disobeying an order and being insubordinate, or else doing something that you deeply understand to be wrong, your only real choice is to quit or be terminated. And if you are or work for a government contractor (as the o.p. does) developing or supporting a capability that you think has grave potential for misuse you have a genuine moral conundrum that can only be resolved by declining to support it, which generally means resigning.

It is not just Trump; the entire GOP—which is now a party that would be unrecognizable to Eisenhower, or even Reagan—has devoted itself to being an anti-democratic, authoritarian-leaning polity which is actively working to undermine the entire electoral process from disenfranchising legitimate voters to undercutting public and institutional trust in elections regardless of how transparent and free from influence they are. We will still have elections in 2026 and (presumably) 2028, but whether they will actually serve to dictate who is in charge is another question entirely.

Stranger

22

I agree, but then it will be too late.

23

Career federal employee here, 2 years shy of planned retirement. I’m a tad surprised at how quickly the responses got quite extreme IMO.

There might be a difference between someone who is - say - designing or operating killer drones, and a mail carrier. A lot of federal employees (and I presume contractors) are providing useful services. No matter who is in the White House and Congress, it is a “good thing” to have roads constructed, Social Security checks issued, etc.

I do not perceive the performance of my non-DoD duties to be any more or less “ethical” under Trump than they were under Biden. Please explain to me how they would be.

I HAVE pondered whether things would get to a point at which I chose to retire earlier than I had planned. (I could easily retire today. Staying 2 more years just improves my financial position.) It was quite unpleasant for a while under all the stupid DOGE directives. And a lot that comes through my email is insulting in one way or another - but pretty easy to ignore and just keep doing my job. I wonder what I would do if required to take a whizz quiz (which I would readily pass - at least today)…

24

Didn’t mean to shut down the thread.

I had intended to reference the ethics of folk who enlist in the military at the time that we are engaged in ethically questionable actions. Such as our time in Iraq/Afghanistan. We are often urged to honor our troops/veterans. I have difficulty with that concept in general, but especially WRT voluntary enlistees at the time of unjustifiable invasion/occupation.

25

From what I know of your job, so far it seems that other than staffing cuts there’s been no unethical interference in your duties.

What do you do when your boss whispers in your ear that henceforth you must only approve benefit applications if the applicant is white and speaks American-accented English, not foreign-accented English? Of course the directive is not in writing, but the Boss is serious that this directive came down from On High and Must Be Obeyed.

Now what? That’s meant as a rhetorical question, not that I’m trying to put you personally on the spot with a gotcha you need to answer publicly.

My hypothetical was also chosen to be very bright-line wrong. There are lots of other ways for ethics to be salami-sliced away, rather than being pitched out wholesale. IMO a successful dictatorship will do a lot more salami slicing than obvious overthrow of norms. OTOH, so far this budding dictatorship is taking the opposite tack.

26

But that’s an individual (the supervisor) who was giving unlawful directives. The OP is referring to official actions and policies of the government.

27

There’s a difference between “official actions and policies of the government” and what that government will put in writing. It is entirely possible for direction to come down from On High and still not be in writing. Happened in my government job all the time. But since I didn’t work for the government we are discussing, I didn’t have a problem following the law or union contracts regardless of whether I was told not to. I don’t know what I would have done if I worked for these people.

28

I was refering to official acts and policies. If you haven’t noticed, a lot of what’s going on in the current criminal regime is based on just that sort of whispering campaign as official policy.

The real ICE who’re conducting various raids probably don’t have an official policy document telling the to operate differently than 12 months ago. They’re doing it because their chain of command told them to. And it almost certainly did not start with some local city-level boss man; he got the order from HQ in Washington over the phone. And HQ got it from the White House verbally.

29

All the time except for 1941-1945?

30

Naah, I’ll allow Korea. And participation in some specific other UN actions like Kosovo.

31

Agreed.

32

As I imagine you would suspect, that just would never happen for my job. But let me explain.

My job is very much delineated by the law and policy as written in statute, regulations, policy statements, and certain official memos. There are certain instances in which I can be given specific directives, but they have to be in writing through the “chain of command.”

Further, I am in a union. Which provides further guidance as to what I can/cannot be instructed to do.

Moreover, I am ostensibly fireable only for cause, with a specific procedure to be followed.

Of course, this administration has attempted to eliminate government employee union protection, and get around civil service protection. My specific position has seen multiple efforts to make folk in my job more easily fireable - and more responsive to the politics of the current administration. A lot of federal employees have thought their jobs secure, and thought they had been performing valuable services, yet have been shitcanned - seemingly contrary to long-established practices and law.

Also, the law/policy have changed many times over my career - sometimes to be more “liberal”, other times more “conservative.” My personal ethics play ZERO role in terms of how I administer and interpret the law. I apply the law as written as I understand it, whether or not it jibes with my personal ideology.

So, if someone “whispered in my ear” as you suggest, the FIRST thing I would do is memorialize it in writing, asking for corroboration, clarification, and explanation. I suspect I would write an email to my immediate supervisor, and copy her immediate boss and the union. I’d say as little as possible, other than, “Please confirm our conversation of (date/time). As I understood it, you instructed me to consider the race and language skills of individuals I encounter in my job. If I am correct, please identify the authority for that. If I am incorrect, please explain what you intended to communicate.”

Then I’d see where it goes from there.

I am in a fortunate position that I could quit/be fired today and not have to worry about putting food on the table. OTOH, historically firing persons similarly situated as I has not been an immediate process. I would likely eventually be placed on administrative leave, during which I would continue to receive my salary without needing to work.

My position is strictly a creation of legislation. If Congress wished, they could eliminate my position with another piece of legislation. If they wished to require that I consider race, language skills, or anything else, they could do that through legislation, regulation, or policy. If they did so in a manner that I found egregious, I would be faced with the option of either complying (I hope I wouldn’t), quitting, or disobeying and seeing if I got fired.

Make sense? Would I be acting ethically or not?

I have no idea how ICE folk could live with themselves these days. And working in DoJ would be mighty challenging. Of course, if someone lacks tremendous transferrable skills and makes a certain level of income, I could imagine them going through all manner of mental gymnastics to rationalize things.

And why focus only on gov’t employees. Is it unethical to work for a major defense contractor? If you design the bombs, or only sweep the floors?

33

This was my thought. The “Is it ethical?” question hinges on what part of the government you’re in, and what kind of job they’re doing.

For jobs on the frontline of the fascist take-over, that being military and law enforcement, the time is pretty much now, if not sometime even earlier. Even if you, personally, haven’t been deployed in some of these tasks, it’s possible you will be in the future, and even just the threat of such deployments is being used to pressure people into bending the knee.

For jobs that are just routine government functions, like the Patent Office, the line would be kind of fuzzy. On the one hand, it’s hard to use patents to oppress people, but on the other, they do provide revenue for the government. It would be hard to draw an obvious line in the sand here.

Then there are jobs like the CDC. They provide an essential service, so it’s ethical to hang in there as long as you can, but as with the CDC last week, a lot of people have started to think the politicization has already eliminated their ability to do good work. It would be unethical to stay there when they’re actively doing bad work.

And then there’s jobs like the VA and Medicare, where you’re actively providing benefits to citizens. Even if they cut a lot of your funding, it’s probably ethical to hang in there until the bitter end. Even that last check you send on your last day will help someone, even if it’s not enough.

34

To state the obvious, there is plenty of room to debate the “ethics” of various aspects of what the VA and Medicare do.

35

Don’t. This administration has been going after early retirees and taking away their benefits; there’s a post in the Pit’s face-eating thread about a Trump voter who discovered this the hard way.

36

Some good discussion here. It really hinges heavily on the specifics, and of the millions or 10s of millions who work for the government, or who support the government as contractors, each one is going to have a personal calculation to make.

I enlisted after 9/11 and have generally struggled with the ethics through that entire career, usually after news of the Air Force killing some civilians somewhere. I was far from the tip of the spear, but the justification for any support role is “we’re all doing our part, however small.” So if we had a great victory, I would feel like I played some small part, but if we blew up a bus full of children, I would also feel like I played some small part.

What I would tell myself, therefore, is that I was working to prevent those kinds of accidents. By helping the Air Force retain only the best people, which is what the systems I develop ultimately do, then I was really on the good side.

But that position can only stand if I believe that the military is, ultimately, trying its best to do the right thing. If I’m helping decision makers cultivate the best fighting force possible, and that fighting force is being turned into a private army doing the bidding of a sociopath… womp womp. Hence this thread.

But I think it goes deeper. Forgive the crude and historically inaccurate analogy, but if someone was working for the nationalized railroads in 1930s Italy, they could tell themselves that all they were trying to do was get the public to where they wanted to go as effectively as possible. Seems harmless, but if all that did was convince low-information rubes that “Maybe this fascism thing isn’t all bad, look how great the trains are running now”… aren’t they just enabling a fascist?

It’s complicated.

37

I truly respect your introspection.

I’d like to ask you some questions, but don’t desire to put you on the spot.

38

Fire away or dm if you’d like.

39

It’s not just a question of practical considerations, there’s additional morals to consider. It’s a question of who will be around to rebuild should Democrats regain power. Here’s one example of what I mean.

Once RFK and Trump are gone, there needs to be some good guys to build things back up. People who will be put back in charge when President Newsom (or whoever else) purges the Trump loyalists.