State Dept. Clerk
Unlike some of the others listed on the Home Page of this site, there are relatively few who will recognize this as their job title. Even so, it's worth including because it's so important, with so many implications.
If you work at State, or in one of its hundreds of overseas embassies or consulates, you are enabling the US Government to relate to foreign governments. You don't set its policies or interpret its decisions, but by carrying them out you give them force and effect. What the rest of the world thinks about America is therefore determined by the way you do your job. Clearly, that's important; but in what way can it be dishonest?
First, as with all government jobs you are being paid with stolen money as explained on our Mafia comparison page. The rest of the answer is determined by what the policies are, which you enable to be executed.
Let's begin at the beginning. Why have a Department of State at all? - answer, to carry out a foreign policy. Why have a foreign policy at all? - answer, not so clear. When representatives of the newly independent States met in Philadelphia to propose that a central government be formed, there was no foreign policy. If their proposals hadn't been ratified, there still wouldn't be one. Instead, each State would have decided its own foreign policy - if any. As it is, though, these prosperous and dynamic fifty states speak with one voice, to the rest of the world. The result has become the most powerful empire in history - and perhaps its most interesting, for unlike others the influence wielded over foreign governments, though massive, is indirect. Look at a map drawn a century ago and much of the world would be in pink, denoting the British Empire, managed from London. Look at one of Europe from twenty centuries ago, and most of it is marked as the Roman Empire, administered direct from Rome. But today, give or take a few "US Posessions" like Guam, there is no such US Empire. But few know better than you that it certainly exists, for all that.
A foreign policy sets the attitude of the US Government towards each other country on Earth. Some are favored, others not so much. Trade restrictions are imposed there, eased here. Aid is given to this one, but with-held from that one. Régimes are "friends" or in need of "change" - sometimes, both, at different times! Sometimes the subjects of those régimes come to hate America for supporting their oppressors, then thank us for encouraging them to throw off the tyrant. It's confusing!
One thing is for sure: whereas a statue was erected in New York Harbor called "Liberty, enlightening the world" that's not how America is seen today, anywhere. The residue of America's belief in freedom still excites foreigners and draws some to migrate here, but that's only because conditions back home are even less free. Even in Europe, for several decades, the USA (meaning, the US Government and its foreign policies) have been disliked, distrusted and sometimes detested. It's true that during WW-II and the few years following, America's popularity was much greater; countries liberated from Nazi rule were grateful... more or less (if you've worked in the Paris embassy you'll know the gratitude was limited.) Today, half a century on, there's not much of it left anywhere. People worldwide have known what should have been obvious at the time: FDR pushed America into that war strictly for his own advantage - in particular, to replace Britain as the world's superpower. It was delayed a bit by the unexpected rise of the USSR, but eventually it succeeded. Few people love superpowers.
The existence and practice of a foreign policy, which is what you work to implement, forms the basis for every war. Necessarily, it favors A at the expense of B. Sooner or later, B gets antsy. Its hotheads - not necessarily under its government's control - use violence. Take the current example of Israel and Palestine, current since the 1940s. US policy has favored the former and aggravated the latter, along with all who sympathize with those displaced Arabs. Violent protests began by the 1960s, and have escalated since. To defend against them, your government has placed military force across the mid-East and so spawned increasing hatreds. At home your government now strip searches all travelers, to reduce exposure to that violence. When TSA operators ogle your exposed body in their scanners, the reason is that your government has a foreign policy, and that you are helping carry it out. Actions - policies - have consequences.
Is it honest, to continue to support and enable the execution of a foreign policy which necessarily has that kind of consequence? Obviously not; and the answer is not just to reverse the policy (eg to favor Palestine at the expense of Israel.) Is it possible to have a government without any foreign policy? - probably not; even the founders (Jefferson) called for "honest trade with all, entangling alliances with none" but they didn't abolish the Department of State so those were just words. So the solution proposed here is to manage without government. That cannot possibly be worse than war.
That, then, is the environment you work in, the system you support. What does it do for your self-respect? Self-esteem is a vital part of life. We all need a purpose, a raison d'être, a way to feel pride in what we have been able to accomplish, a basis for ambition to achieve more in future.
Working for government undermines your basis for self-esteem. Make a clean break; offer your skills elsewhere. Get an honest job - even if at first you have to take a pay cut. You'll not regret it; at life's end you will look back in pride and pleasure, and be able to say, "I helped build that!"
