Fire them all

President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11000 air-traffic controllers in 1981 for staging an illegal strike. President Bill Clinton’s first act as president was to fire all the U.S attorneys across the U.S. – an unprecedented act by an American president.

What is the difference between these two acts? In the first instance President Reagan acted within the law by removing from office those who sought to violate the law. In the second instance President Clinton acted solely in his own self interest to subvert justice.

These two acts highlight the differences in properly herding the apparatchiks along the path of carrying out their legal responsibilities and removing them purely at ones discretion in an attempt to have the apparatchiks serve a personal agenda. While there are occasions where the apparatchiks stage palace revolutions in direct conflict with their legal responsibilities there are also occasions where the executive in charge attempts to pervert the bureaucracy away from these same responsibilities.

How do we promote the enforcement of the law and prevent the abuse of power for individual gain?

The Venona Project

Understanding history can help us understand the lengths that individuals will go to in order to further their personal agendas, gain acceptance and wealth, or otherwise just fit in. A classic example that illustrates this is the information gathered during the Venona Project. Learn what was done in the past (subversion of America's effort to develop the atom bomb) and see how high (or is that low) the bar has been set for present day apparatchiks in the Defense Department, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and elsewhere.

A brief history lesson regarding the Venona Project is located at:

http://www.nsa.gov/venona/index.cfm

And yes Julius and Ethel, among others, were guilty as hell. American Apparatchiks of the Communist variety may not have been under every bed but they were legion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_code_names_in_the_Venona_papers

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? - Mathew 16:26

Reason for being here

My reason for being out here on the web is to take note of and discuss the Headless Horseman that is bureaucracy. Especially governmental bureaucracy. If man is a social animal that craves communal acceptance then in my mind there is no greater example of this than comradeship imposed by bureaucracy. As a former long term member of one subset of "The Collective" I will seek to highlight how group think is still very much alive in America. Group think is often not only at odds with common sense but in its most insidious form is a threat to our nations survival.