In this remarkable video, a park ranger explains to park visitors that while they are certainly free to enjoy the park, they can’t pick up litter while they are there.
I’m not kidding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JET6a4ZNpzs
Is it fair to make general assumptions about federal employees and our government bureaucracies based on the babbling of this poor ranger?
Sure it is.
For one thing, anyone who has dealt with bureaucrats recognizes this mentality, although admittedly Mr. Ranger is an extreme and depressing case. Too often they don’t think, refuse to think, or are incapable of critical thought….in other words, they are incompetent for doing anything but following black letter instructions, and as soon as circumstances render those instructions less than applicable, they retreat into the Twilight Zone of Power Without Ethics.
A competent and trustworthy government doesn’t ever put its citizens in the position of having someone in authority lecture them on why it is against the rules to pick up litter in a public place because you haven’t been formally designated a volunteer. A competent and trustworthy government never places an individual this incapable of rational action and thought in a position of power over the liberty of citizens. I am not a libertarian—far from it—but if you wanted to find a video to bolster the cause of libertarian ism, you would be hard pressed to find better.
I have compassion for the poor ranger; he has no idea what to do. However, if you don’t have the reasoning skills to say, “Sure, pick up all the litter you want. Thanks” in this situation, you really have no business wearing a uniform. I agree with the commentator. The unofficial volunteers should have defied the edict, kept picking up litter. and dared the guy to arrest them, warning him that he and his bosses would be subjected to merciless public ridicule, and that he would almost certainly be fired.
This video also illustrates why, outside of Washington, D.C. and some leftist bubbles, the fact that the government shutdown has resulted in some federal employees being furloughed is not seen as an existential tragedy. They are seen, and the video shows why they are seen, as frequently under-qualified, over-paid, overly secure, definitely richly-perked people who are given too much power to constrain our choices and liberty without the sense, ability, accountability and motivation to do so well or fairly.
___________________
Pointer: Michael
Ethics Alarms 
My guess, he wanted the litter to stay where it was. That way, when the local (liberal) TV station came out, his boss could say “Here’s the result of Trump’s shutdown.” But, no, of course there’s no Deep State Shadow Government. Right.
Even I can’t imagine this guy has any notion of anything deep, let alone the state. He seems more emblematic of a government employee incapable independent thought or action. He is, going back to Benjamin’s recent posts here, the society many of us seek to entirely depart and start over without him and so many others like him.
Possibly, but I think incompetence and stupidity are far more likely to be at play here.
Unfortunately, he appears to be the kind of guy who, upon orders, kicks in your door and does whatever the state tells him.
Yup.
He sounds like a brainless drone.
As ludicrous as this sounds I feel for the ranger because he is trapped in a bureaucratic conundrum made possible by idiotic rules enacted to avoid litigation against deep pocket government that came to be because such litigation was encouraged and embraced by the Trial Lawyers Association.
If the Ranger is caught by a supervisor allowing this he or she will be reprimanded. Nothing happens to the superior unless the superior looks the other way and someone higher up gets wind of the activity. By now, the lawyers representing the government are consulted and they give a 50 page opinion on why these people are creating an undue risk for litigation and that the ranger and supervisor that looked the other way should be sanctioned.
Keep in mind that Trump’s predecessor established the precedent to make shutdowns appear as bad as possible. Do you think that Ranger’s representative in Congress would stand up for him or her if that representative was a member of the party that wants the costs of the shutdown to be as visible as possible.
Followup point. Before we condemn the ranger, he is on the job without knowning when he will be paid again.
Sounds a little like a defense at Nuremberg, Chris. But he’s not facing capital punishment. The guy gets reprimanded? And then he files a grievance via the Rangers association or some union and it gets thrown out of his file.
Personally, I think we should have rolling partial shutdowns all the time. And no pay for no work. They could be called Deficit Shutdowns or Taxpayer Appreciation Shutdowns.
OB
I see your point but the behavior exhibited is either a one off situation whereby we cannot condemn all government bureaucracies or this is a case in which the employment culture is designed/implemented/promoted by the mind numbingly stupid superiors in this organization.
I tend to think this is a learned cultural aspect of federal employment.
I like the rolling shutdown idea. Another way to do this is to reduce compensation to reflect 32 hours and give them 3 day
weekends. Or only let them work when Congress is in session.
That last paragraph is precisely my point. Thank you.
Very good objectivity Chris,its important to have someone holding down that fort.
But, in the end, it’s an ethics question, like the lifeguard in a post a few years ago who was fired because he rescued a drowning swimmer on a beach outside his responsibilities. At some point an ethical and responsible employee—especially a government employee—has to be able to decide, “Well, this is obviously wrong, so I’m going to do what is obviously right.” He knew, or should have known, the letting the people pick up litter was right, because he knew or should have know that he was sounding like a cretin arguing with them.
Jack, I see a wide variance between a lifeguard saving a person against rules and stopping trash pick up.
You argued that he should see this is wrong and do what is right. Right for whom? If he is fired, demoted, or otherwise sanctioned who will come to his defense when he does what is right. No one’s life is in jeopardy if he follows orders.
To me there must be a continuum upon which such ethical dilemmas must be evaluated. Using the balancing test we use in life and death matters is probably not applicable in more mundane matters.
As a manager of people before I retired I encouraged subordinates to make decisions. That meant that I could not hold them fully responsible for a decision that did not work out when the employee could articulate any reasonable rationale for the decision.
Instead of faulting the ethical reasoning skills of the ranger our emphasis should be on why the ranger felt he had no choice but to follow the rules to the letter. We may find that the ranger was in fact merely a swimmer needing saving from the political machinations of his superiors.
He might have issued his warning to them and, somehow, had himself videod doing it so he had the proof. Or brought along a fellow ranger as a witness. He could have issued the warning but through various means indicated that they could go on doing what they were doing.
Much depends on why he was so zealous.
And, if they have a way by which people can volunteer, all they need to do is go there on Monday and fill out the forms.
Nope. He’s a government employee, which means the people come first. He is mistreating the People with no good reason. You are arguing that keeping his job is more important than doing his job. Furthermore, there is no chance that he will be fired for letting people pick up litter. Indeed, he would have the easiest wrongful termination suit on Earth. People could violate signs by throwing down litter, but couldn’t pick up their own litter because they weren’t volunteers?
He felt he had no choice because he’s neither smart enough, fair enough nor ethically astute enough for the responsibilities he has.
If you take a job that forces you into these sort of stupid situations, you are responsible for staying and not finding a different job. Otherwise, you are just a cog in the system, a minion, and culpable ethically and perhaps morally.
“I was just following orders” has not been a legitimate excuse for decades, if it ever was.
Not since Nuremberg, at least.
Please cite the statute that makes collection of trash off of public property illegal.
The ranger is enforcing something he has no authority to do.
That was my thought. I doubt there is any such regulation. If I ever get to a national park again, I am going to pick up the first litter I see in full view of a parks employee and see what happens.
My sad suspicion is that this was done at the behest of the union. The press made a bid deal about trash piling up in the National Parks since Trump didn’t close them all to needlessly punish the American people (like Obama did). Volunteers then started picking up the trash. Some news outlets started covering the volunteers. If the parks stay clean without the employees, someone might wonder why those employees are needed.
RIF ’em!
Obvious solution for the park beautifying criminals…
The appropriate logic to utterly confound this Park Ranger is to state
“Because the mess is on United States of America property the mess in the park belongs to the people of the United States of America; therefore, the people of the United States of America are in the process of cleaning up their own mess.”
Watch the Park Rangers jaw drop, then kindly tell the Park Ranger…
“Thank you for continuing to do your job during the difficult government shutdown and we will continue to clean up our mess. Feel free to join us in cleaning up your portion of this mess.”
After that, simply ignore anything the Park Ranger says from that moment on and continue beautifying the park.
There’s the solution. Share this with all your park beautifying criminal friends.
Perfect response.
Of course you know all the government employed park cleanup personnel are going to be really really pissed off at the people that clean up the parks, those mean old volunteers are destroying all the cushy overtime hours that they would have gotten to clean up the mess.
Here is an alternate view for you.
Someone who was apparently picking up rubbish claims that they twisted an ankle, got bitten by a spider, cut their finger, got a needle stick etc. ad nauseam and sues for millions. Formally recognized volunteers are covered under insurance but anyone else isn’t.
Of course it’s ridiculous, it’s all ridiculous, but that’s what happens these days. The fact that this incident has been so publicized means that some mongrel will get the idea to try just such a scam.
You enter the park and do anything at your own risk, I assume.
It would be nice if that was the case but somehow I doubt it. These days its always someone else’s fault i.e. in this case the ranger’s so he was likely told he had he had to protect the Park from legal suits.
Are you unfamiliar with sovereign immunity? The ability to sue the federal government is highly limited.
When Obama shut the parks, I asked some leftist friends why. They explained that people couldn’t be allowed in the park without the safety net the federal government provides. I guess the government wraps you in bear-repellent bubble-wrap when you enter the parks now. I suggested they just put up a sign that says “No park employees are on duty during the shutdown. You are now entering the food chain, act accordingly”.
I was doing fine until the ‘food chain’ thing. Inhaled my drink…Least I didn’t kill the keyboard.
That was my assumption as well. As the ranger points out, they aren’t just picking up some runaway paper, they’re moving brush and doing heavier lifting.
I’m not sure how far sovereign immunity would protect from a suit, but I do know that “enter at your own risk” waivers are far from ironclad protection.
The ranger’ s duty may be to serve the paroled but he’s also serving the people by avoiding the lawsuit.
I think you’re stretching. Letting people in at all is 1000 times riskier than letting them pick up litter. Doing one and making an issue of the other is absurd. He could also say, “Be careful now. You’re doing this at your own risk.”
Why is the Park Ranger at work, if the federal government is shut down?
Why not pay the trash removal people instead of the people who tell citizens not to remove trash?
Because the parks aren’t shut down. Like the TSA and the Secret Service, government employees still have to work during the shutdown, they’re just not getting their paychecks.
So the media gets its yucks out of stories of park patrons dying during the shutdown after stupid selfie attempts and litter-filled trails, essentially daring Trump to shut down the parks so they can complain about him shutting down the parks.
So in the hive-mind of federal bureaucracy, the “essential” employees at a National Park are the staff who prevent trash from being picked up, not the employees who pick up trash. This will result in more negative press coverage of the government shutdown, and by extension, the President.
Got it!
I just ran across this and I’m going to post this without commenting about it, at least for now….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p7oWrLX2pU
Is it true, false, or wacko; I don’t have a clue.
You decide.
My first thought based on the way this is presented is that it’s conspiracy theory bunk.
I have heard that the law is real. The political will to apply it may be lacking.