Economy for Everyone
Accountability vs obedience: why civil service guardrails matter
guardrails | 2026-02-09 | facebook
Civil-service guardrails protect accountability to law by limiting loyalty-based pressure in hiring, firing, and reclassification.
This isn’t about tanks. It’s about hiring and firing. If it becomes easy to punish dissent and reward loyalty, the guardrails quietly disappear - even if the laws look the same on paper.
What’s happening
A professional civil service is supposed to serve the law - not a person.
OPM is one of the places where “the rules apply to everyone” either stays true… or quietly stops being true.
Why it matters (plain language)
Systems rarely slide in one dramatic leap.
They slide through lots of small changes that:
- make it easier to fire the people whose job is to say “no,” and
- re-label roles so “policy job” starts to mean “any job we care about.”
You don’t need mass firings. Fear does the work.
What good looks like
- Accountability to law (evidence + process)
- Not obedience to a person (alignment + loyalty screening)
- Clear job protections where independence is the point
- Transparent rules and narrow definitions for any reclassification
One small action
Two options:
- Read the primary rule / document before repeating claims.
- Call your reps and say:
“I support accountability to law. I don’t support turning career public service into loyalty to a person.”
Receipts
The original post referenced Fedweek and WIRED (keep the canonical page updated with current links and any official rule text).