Is THERE SHAME IN BEING a FEDERAL EMPLOYEE?

     The purpose of this article is not the disparagement of minorities, nor women, nor the majority of federal employees. The purpose is to point out just how commonplace the misapplication of Federal Laws, Executive Orders, and personnel programs affecting US Civil Service lower quality of Government Services by promoting inexperienced through preferential discrimination favoring only a select few minorities.

     From the top to the bottom, from the Presidents’ cabinets and administrations to new hires of every agency, the federal work force is controlled and run by people for whom diversity and EEO are not the desired ends but the MEANS to power. Their liberal, socialistic attitudes toward their jobs rob Civil Service of the best and brightest people for the Federal workforce and impede quality work as well as the hiring, training, and promotion of the best qualified candidates. And our Congress and Media (who are supposed to be fair minded overseers) simply ignore the problems. Our present illegal alien problem and one presidential candidate are highly visible examples of the mindset that minorities must receive preference.

     Far too many appointments and promotions have been and will continue to be filled with people chosen more for color, gender, and controllability than knowledge, experience or ability and this practice hurts the entire country. (Perhaps controllability was also a principal reason for Clinton’s selection of so many very young and inexperienced.) Too many appointees are also found virtually incompetent as they are neither knowledgeable about their jobs, agencies, nor even their supposed areas of operations for which they make and enforce policies to which everyone else must adhere.

Not too many years ago, Color and Gender were considered improper selective factors and were the basis for discrimination suits. Now they are the primary selection factors. Consider Pena (DOT), Elders (Health), Cisneros (Housing), and Reich (Labor). Which of those had actually successfully held previous jobs in fields for which they made policy? Fortunately, these are only political appointees.

Consider Barack Obama, the present Democrat Party designee for the next President. He only has about 140 or so hours of experience as a senator and none at all in business, personnel, law, or anything else that might equip him with sufficient experience for office. Of course, the Media fawn all over him and excuse his every foolish pronouncements because he is sorta black, the first such minority to not make a complete fool of himself by being Conservative as well (there have been other black candidates, you know, but they weren’t “Liberals”).

     Such foolishly liberal policies promoting diversity above experience or even education ensure continued failures by larger than normal percentages of minorities by promoting inexperience and ignorance to positions well beyond their abilities to effectively cope. Such supposedly enlightened policies hurt the nation and federal work force. Too many minorities fail who would have had a much greater chance for success and could have become much more effective if given sufficient training and allowed to accumulate sufficient experience before being promoted. This is true at all levels and areas of Civil Service from cabinet to field levels. BO is a mere example.

     Unfortunately, within all realms of Civil Service, existing director, manager, and supervisor effectiveness reports are partly graded and greatly influenced by who, which, and how many minorities they manage to promote. (see enclosure) Of course, ANY promotions not handed to PC acceptable femmes/minorities are often immediately challenged by partisan protected "Alphabet" groups (such as NBCFAE, PWC, NHCFAE, NAACP, etc.) run by social minority members of those groups. Women, Blacks, and Hispanics are currently all favored regardless of any other quality.

Resulting Equal Employment Opportunity complaints force all selecting officials to completely justify every selection factor, often falsely. (Anything less may result in a selecting official's being demoted or fired for "discrimination"). Self-protecting managers, therefore, take the easier approach of lowering acceptable minimum selection standards, then protecting, and covering up their selections mistakes. Here’s how it’s done.

     For every Civil Service (and these rules apply to Corporations as well) promotional vacancy, a public bid is published which lists the required qualifications for selection. If the highest candidates for any particular position might score 100 points on some arbitrary scale of education, experience, and awards but the nearest minority only scores 75 points, then lowering minimum acceptable cutoff points to below 75 allows even poorly qualified applicants to be considered. Since all candidates scoring above the minimum are selectable, selecting officials may then choose whichever female or minority that will make them look best in their own annual evaluation reports regardless of their selections qualifications. In some cases lower standards have become institutionalized, that is, lower standards have now been written into some Agency regulation manuals thereby insuring the continued lowest possible range or point minimum necessary to make the cut-off lists. Nearly every Agency has a list of required minimum qualifications for any given agency job. Dumb those standards down far enough and you can select anyone you choose to do anything regardless of the job type (which is what happens).

     Another common strategy is to disallow or give no credence to particular or common work related experiences that have direct bearing upon any specific job understanding or performance ability. For example, when applying for management jobs within FAA's Air Traffic Division, an obvious aviation related organization,  aviation experiences, other than direct Air Traffic Control, such as pilots' licenses, aviation management, aviation related college degrees, etc. are given no points nor credit at all; neither are Computer related degrees nor Personnel Management degrees. In fact higher education of any sort is given little weight when applying for any FAA management or supervisory positions regardless of division. Result: poor decisions. Witness ATR-420 icing deaths.

     This has become a common practice throughout the Federal work force. Even Military Commanders are now under pressure to promote "under represented" (normally spelled b-l-a-c-k) categories so that work forces will be more "diverse" regardless of qualifications. Leadership always suffers when nonqualitative factors dictate to whom and why promotions are given. Not color nor genders denote any merit, ability, nor capability for anything in particular so why are they deciding factors?

     In the not too distant past, being a Federal employee was a source of pride. Federal employees were generally considered competent, dedicated, educated, well trained, and productive. The Civil Service exam was supported by other agency and subject specific exams weeding out undereducated, incompetent, and lazy. Today, most entry level CS jobs require but a High School education or GED equivalency, however, even the outstanding scholar program intended to help in the hiring of superior academic achievers, is being abused to force hiring of Hispanics through waivers of required achievements. In 1996 only 25% of all hirees were required to take any sort of qualifying exam. Once hired for any job, socialistic programs intended to ensure minority equality and promote diversity are further abused to promote "under-represented" under qualified candidates over more qualified whether minority or not. Upgrade training is also lax and, too often, nonexistent.

     Such incompetence is viral spreading upward as under qualified, under educated, inexperienced, and ignorant people are pushed ever upward to higher positions of authority. As the inexperience and ignorance spreads upward, increasingly incompetent decisions and policies are foisted on the lower echelons resulting in further deterioration of services.

     Rampant socialism was the bane of the USSR but our liberal socialists, hiding under the guise of Congress (mostly the Democrat Party), still seem to believe in, and are constantly striving for, ever larger bureaucracies with ever more regulations to justify their own existence. Unfortunately, such policies filter down into those of the states, cities, and counties. Is this utopianism or just stupidity?

     Less this be misunderstood, there is definite need for some bureaucracy and Federal regulation in some major areas. And most bureaucrats are still fairly technically competent dedicated individuals regardless of whether minority status or not even though this percentage is steadily decreasing. However, the socialization of military and government agencies is under-mining our freedoms, promoting unworkable solutions, and forcing immoral, sometimes illegal, actions on the work force and the general populace. The Constitution is the forgotten document. California’s gross immoralities are pure examples.

     Simply put, multiculturalism, the belief that every cultural concept is of equal moral value and must be accepted as a valid lifestyle choice, is absurd but enforced within CS. Aiding and abetting this foolishness is a full time job for most, if not all, federal employee Unions and several offices set within the Departments and Agencies. Offices such as Human Rights, Equal Employment Opportunity, Civil Rights, Public Affairs, etc. are becoming separate entities no longer contained within agency personnel offices. They have become key offices through which every promotion or selection must be acceptable and which have veto power over the selection methods and qualifications of every selection factor. Of course, in practice, all affirmative action and diversity policies call for these offices to be staffed by the very minorities and femmes who have considerable stake in their selection processes.

     To assure minority power, these offices all too often force or require other hiring offices to give preference to minorities and femmes rather than minority status being the additional selecting factor when all else is equal as the law intended (see enclosures) making race/gender the primary factors in promotional consideration. Any complainant is immediately labeled a bigoted, prejudiced, crybaby and becomes unpromotable, a pariah within their agencies. For a white male managerial to actually complain about mis-application of laws or the selection process has become the kiss of death for many federal careers.

     The Nation suffers whenever all poor choices and uninformed

decisions are made, but particularly in the realms controlled by

various Civil Service offices. We very much need to return to

merit and measurable promotional standards. Only Congress has  

the power to affect such a return to meritocracy. Only the

voting public can force Congressional action when the tide of

minority PACs are against the return to the merit promotion

system. B.O. is merely the latest, but highest, minority

selectee unqualified for the position they seek. Don’t let his

rhetorical pretensions and the Media sway your actions. Let’s

make a real effort to eradicate incompetent Government.

PL Booth, the Blue Eye View, Blue Eye, MO