Politicians & Bureaucrats

THE BRITISH PM & US STATE DEPT. BUREAUCRATS
(Two Lessons: One Agenda)

This mornings’ (14 Jan.) Washington newspaper has two front-page stories that tell us much about what they don’t say. Rural Americans of all but the richest stripes and everyone that owns or uses any animals or natural resources or are simply concerned about the pressures on their rights and way of life should consider what these two articles really say.

Article # 1:
British leader urges no-consent organ harvesting
LONDON-Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday threw his weight behind a move to allow hospitals to remove organs from dead patients without explicit consent.

Article #2:
Veteran envoys lament bad rap
A recent outcry in the Foreign Service over forced assignments in Iraq has angered many veteran diplomats, who say that whiners and complainers in their ranks have made the diplomatic corps look unprofessional and disloyal.
That perception was reinforced last week by a survey of The American Foreign Service Association, the diplomats’ union, in which 1,592 respondents said they would not volunteer for Iraq positions because of “disagreement with policy.”

I ask the reader to set aside your opinions about “social” issues and Iraq and consider what these two headlines really say.

As England moves to pass a law authorizing doctors to take organs from the dead it is sure that the European Union and probably Canada and Australia and New Zealand and the USA will attempt to follow suit. Setting aside the issues like when are you “dead” or how to monitor or enforce the actions or lack of action by doctors to speed things along when the patient has no intervener or guardian or when the patient is dying anyway: this proclamation really says that the government owns your body and the body of your loved ones when you or they die. Proving otherwise when you are dead or before your loved one can intervene will be next to impossible. Like all other government proclamations of new authority (this time at the expense of the individual) this new law is for a high purpose, providing organs for people that might otherwise not receive needed organ transplants.

This claim by government to own your body upon your death is a natural result of previous government power-claiming precedents in this area. A procession of US government claims in this area go from lifting legal protection of the unborn (call it fetus or embryo or tissue) in the 1973 Roe v Wade decision to condoning assisted suicide and state-ordered starvation (Schiavo) to fetal destruction surrounding artificial insemination, stem cell research, and most recently human cloning attempts. The thing to note is the rapid and unimaginable growth of new and assumed government powers. Does anyone doubt that as government claims the authority to authorize organ harvesting without permission that this new power will be used eventually as a precedent to justify killing children under 6 months (at what age does government ownership of the body begin or cease) that don’t have an assured “quality of life” as proposed at an Ivy League University? If 6 months, why not 12 months? Why not 2 years? What about old, sick people and those afflicted with terminal disease? What about those that “cost” a lot since government provides the health care? If government owns your body after death, it is just one step closer to all theses things both in the public eye and legally as precedents are established and we come to think of these things as “normal”, needed” or legitimate.

And the point is? The point is how much this growth of power by strong central governments in thi9s area is just like the Endangered Species Act and the Animal Welfare Act and recent laws like banning the slaughter of horses. Always the warm fuzzy reason and then the growth and precedents and claims that go way beyond whatever was imagined or mentioned by the politicians or the sponsors or the bureaucrats.

Speaking of bureaucrats. Foreign policy is one of the few legitimate roles that justifies the need for a strong central government with specifically identified responsibilities. The President we elect appoints the Secretary of State and the employees of the US State Department work for the President: only when they feel like it evidently. The Foreign Service is a high-sounding name for US State Department employees that work mostly oversees at embassies and missions. They are notoriously certain of two things: the utter ignorance of the American public and its elected officials, and their own wisdom and insight regarding how America should behave. They disagree with our Iraq “policy” so they just won’t go there. They are much like many other bureaucrats in the federal government. Ninety-plus percent of the US Fish and Wildlife Service is very liberal and support liberal policies and will slow or undercut any threat to such policies. Mostly those policies while couched in terms of “saving” this or that are self-serving proposals that consider nothing except what grows government powers and minimizes the ability of any citizen to get in the way. The same goes for nearly all federal agencies. While the percentage may vary some, you can depend on the bureaucrats to support anything that grows their budget and supports what they want (which happens to be more money, power, and recognition), just like those Foreign Service folks.

The real fact that the federal bureaucracies are staffed with folks that think like this is why they play footsies with the environmental extremists and animal rights radicals. It is why regulations just grow more and more bizarre and why they grow the need for more people and dollars as they claim more and more responsibilities and authority. It is why we went from “saving” the bald eagle (the national bird, blah, blah, blah) with an Endangered Species Act to forcing wolves and grizzly bears throughout the West to the detriment of entire regions but for the rich and famous of course. It is why the Animal Welfare Act was allowed to drive animal testing from the USA to China, of all places. It is why we go from anti-cockfighting laws to anti-horse slaughter laws to proposed federal regulation of dogs and cats. Like the Foreign Service folks, the bureaucrats in the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest Service and Park Service et al know what is “best” for themselves; ummm, excuse me I mean for you and America.

Sop the next time you are asked to support more power for the federal government for some warm and fuzzy purpose and you look at a President you like that you just “know” would never abuse the power and then you hear from some federal employee that you knew in high school and whom you trust: remember Gordon Brown and the US Foreign Service. Any politician today and those coming tomorrow should not be trusted with such despotic powers and no matter how wise bureaucrats look or sound, they are just as human as those politicians and cannot be trusted with anything other than working for us with strictly limited and specific authority. Otherwise, we now know just what happens.

Jim Beers
14 January 2008
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- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Centreville, Virginia with his wife of many decades.