In praise of those who serve. Yes, even under Trump. Especially under Trump.

Jennifer Pahlka – Code for America

Civil servants and civil services have ethical responsibilities for what they do. They can and must take account of the democratic mandate of the governments they serve, but that is a factor in the ethical judgements they make, it is not an exemption from the obligation to make them.

Usually when questions of this kind are discussed it is in the context of the limits beyond which government officials should not act, given that by strong implication politically neutral civil servants value the political, legal and civil system more highly than all the specific outcomes of that system. But this post is doubly interesting because it comes from the opposite direction: are there countervailing obligations, are there circumstances in which officials should continue in government despite fundamental disagreements with the policy and ethics of the political leaders they serve? The assertion here is that commitment to the values of public service can – and arguably should – lead people to stay in government both to sustain services to those who depend on them and to mitigate the worst consequences of bad policies and decisions. It’s a powerful argument. But it has the potential to be a profoundly undemocratic one. Democracies undoubtedly need checks and balances and in extremis, civil services can be such a check. But we should be worried – much more as citizens than as bureaucrats – when political and legal checks are insufficient to create an ethical balance.

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