MAPLETON, UT | 7 April 2008 | There is a little-known disease that afflicts a special segment of any population. It is very contagious, but it seems to manifest itself most frequently when the carrier is either elected to public office or is appointed to a government department. The most severe cases are witnessed in those who are career bureaucrats. Few seem to be able to resist infection after years on the government payroll.

It thrives in a specific climate, namely an environment created by looters, nourished by plunder, and devoid of sterilizing agents such as productivity, accountability, and the consequences of profit or loss.

This is the story of a certain individual who worked in such a government workplace, fighting the culture of the diseased minds. Like the character Robert Neville in the novel “I Am Legend”, her immunity to the disease made her an outcast in her world. Her struggle reject the creed of the moochers and to bring to light the violations of principle in her workplace resulted in her being fired – with the only explanation given that she was terminated for the government’s convenience.

Sibel Edmonds was hired as a translator at the F.B.I’s language division after the events of 9/11. Her story has been featured on major news programs, usually for the purpose of illustrating the government’s inept response to the events of 9/11. There is another aspect of her story, however, that is not typically noticed. In an interview with Ed Bradley of CBS News, her comments reveal the glaring symptoms of the bureaucratic disease.

Key Points:

• From the day she started the job, she was told repeatedly by one of her supervisors that there was no urgency – that she should take longer to translate documents so that the department would appear overworked and understaffed. That way, it would receive a larger budget for the next year.
• “We were told by our supervisors that this was the great opportunity for asking for increased budget and asking for more translators,” says Edmonds. “And in order to do that, don’t do the work and let the documents pile up so we can show it and say that we need more translators and expand the department.”
• Edmonds says that the supervisor, in an effort to slow her down, went so far as to erase completed translations from her FBI computer after she’d left work for the day. “The next day, I would come to work, turn on my computer, and the work would be gone. The translation would be gone,” she says. “Then I had to start all over again and retranslate the same document. And I went to my supervisor and he said, ‘Consider it a lesson and don’t talk about it to anybody else and don’t mention it.’
• Edmonds said, “The lesson was don’t work, and don’t do the translations. …Don’t do the work because — and this is our chance to increase the number of people here in this department.”
• When she made formal allegations, her boss said, “Do you realize what you are saying here in your allegations? Are you telling me that our security people are not doing their jobs? Is that what you’re telling me? If you insist on this investigation, I’ll make sure in no time it will turn around and become an investigation about you.”

Commentary:

Most who read these accounts can clearly identify the incompetence that results in the mishandling of important information. What is recognized less often is the mentality that leads to such a situation. In this case, the quotes concerning the management’s desire to artificially stifle productivity in order to build a case for greater funding is most telling. In a government bureaucracy where productivity and efficiency is not rewarded with profit – in fact, where the opposite is true, is it any wonder that workers would be incentivized to hold back? Why work so hard to finish a task if you can simply let important work pile up and claim to be unable to do anything about it? Why bother innovating and succeeded when incompetence and inability are rewarded with bigger budgets and increased staff to lessen one’s workload?

The very nature of the existence of government bureaucracy is systematically opposed to the forces that govern every private endeavor – which some defend as a indication of moral superiority, as opposed to the presumed “lesser laws” of profit and productivity. However, the mentality that breeds such bureaucracies is doomed to devolve into the very situation apparent in the story of Sibel Edmonds. When the source of the wages of each worker in that bureaucracy is provided by political pull, graft, and the “public good” (as determined by those currently in power), and any negative evaluation of their performance is determined to be simply a result of insufficient funding, it is not surprising that managers would direct their workers to perform at less than their full potential.

Some would argue that an agency such as the F.B.I., being essential to the public good, must operate “above” the rules that exist in the private workplace – yet they are shocked to discover such behavior as was revealed in the case of Sibel Edmonds. Rather than recognizing the principles that govern the actions of all men, they prefer to express outrage, assign blame to bureaucratic scapegoats, and pretend to solve the problem by appointing new directors who are presumably more “principled” than the last ones. This is the best the socialist, bureaucratic mentality can come up with. Since, in their minds, there would be no corruption without corrupt leaders, their best bet is to keep swapping out the leadership every so often – all the while ignoring the cancerous disease that cripples the very operation of the department. Without productivity as a standard (Principle 10), and profit as the tool of validation of that productivity (Principle 9), the bureaucrats are at the mercy of a disease which infects all those whose “mental immune systems” are compromised by the morality and mentality of the moochers and looters. All, that is, except those who refuse to assent – like Sibel Edmonds.

The failure of any government agency to perform its duties can be most effectively corrected by addressing the culture of bureaucracy and the mentality that keeps it alive. Public outrage over the particulars of this case and many others has failed to effect meaningful change, because it appears to the public that these failures are the result of simply having the wrong person in charge. Unless and until the same principles that govern productivity and excellence in the private marketplace are applied in the halls of government, this mental disease will continue to flourish.

Action Steps:

1. Choose to live by principle in your workplace – take personal responsibility for your productivity, and reject the moocher’s mentality of idleness and victimhood.
2. Research what is meant by Principle 10: “Productivity is the Standard”, and ask yourself how you can be more productive. What would be the result of such a commitment to productivity in your life?
3. Read “The Brain-Off Conspiracy” by Rick Koerber in the Free Capitalist Primer – what description best fits those who express outrage at the government without offering principled solutions?

Principles:  (3, 9, 10)

References:

Lost In Translation - CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/25/60minutes/main526954.shtml

Sibel Edmonds - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds