Why are so many bureaucracies devoid of ethics?

To expect a bureaucracy to be a bountiful flowing river of ethical niceties is the same as if would we expected crocodiles not to eat humans.

I'm here to tell you that the crocodiles are floating down that ever-flowing river of bureaucracy. They have camouflaged themselves amongst the floating logs. They are quietly waiting to make their move on you and me.

To borrow from the Walt Whitman poem Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Mr Whitman did not discuss alligators and could only write about the niceties of his ferry ride. He discussed the "...the sunset [and] the pouring in of the flood-tide and the falling back to sea of the ebb-tide..."

He could see "... the scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening."

He loved the "... stately and rapid river..."

It was all so perfect and so beautiful and yet when he wrote this poem, the American Civil War was almost upon his beloved America. They had crocodiles of their own, with which they had to dance.

Life was not as fair then in the western world in so many ways, in Mr Whitman's time. They did not have the medical technology we have today. They did not have penicillin, despite a great war in their midst. Most people were content to work in shops, farms and factories, with the more high-class jobs available to the few.

While all this went on, they still had the crocodiles of bureaucracy, which floated along the Brooklyn waterways. It was the most horrid/awful war bureaucracy and each had to play a part.

Wind the clock forward to today and it pains me to see all the people here in Sydney Australia who have fallen through the cracks in the bureaucracy. Often this is those whom the school education bureaucracy has failed. The national government employment system has failed them. The health system has failed all the psychiatric patients they have thrown out onto the street.

It's not only the psych patients who roam the streets, but also the other people i mentioned whom employment and education bureaucracies failed.

Many of them have self medicated on drugs and alcohol for far too long.

You have to understand that we do not have any choice other than to cast ethical aspersions on our bureaucracies and the crocodiles it produces, which hide among the ebb-tide, awaiting their daily feed.

As every day goes by, the lack of ethics in relation to human decency and human rights from our bureaucracies horrifies me further.

Our bureaucracies should be set up for the people, without the crocodiles hiding in the ebb-tide. ― Joseph Walz