Source: (consider it)
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Thread: North carolina lobbyists can officially screw politicians legally
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
From the article:- quote: After all, if you’re a lobbyist or a government official, chances are you may not be very ethical to begin with. Perhaps making sex between the two professions perfectly fine would just make it less enticing.
Lobbyist, yes, I think most of us would regard professional lobbyists as the sort of people who give lizards a bad name. But we do expect government officials, i.e. civil servants, local government officers etc., to be principled and ethical. Or is this a cross-cultural disjunct?
-------------------- Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote: But we do expect government officials, i.e. civil servants, local government officers etc., to be principled and ethical. Or is this a cross-cultural disjunct?
I dunno. I would say that in AT LEAST half of the political discussions I engage in, things trail off after a few minutes when the other person says "Ah, they're all just a bunch of crooks, anyway", as a way of dismissing the whole topic as worthless. That's mostly in Canada, but I'm sure I've heard it from Americans and Brits as well.
And, FWIW, it's an attitude I find somewhat frustrating, because, while I do recognize that a modicum of dishonesty and self-aggrandizement is part and parcel of any political system, I do very much enjoy discussing politics as a current-event("Who do you think will win the election?" etc). But, it really is not a popular topic with the average person.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
There was a time when the general run of civil servants were assumed to be pretty mainline honest and competent. There was also bitching about them getting too much pay, about them having pension plans, about specific instances of arrogance or pettiness or actual incompetence, about perceived overstaffing (particularly road crews), but very few thought they were dishonest.
Unfortunately, it has become political-party policy to attack civil servants for just doing their job, with the pols expecting that everyone else is as dishonest as the party.
Some of that is the so-called-conservative effort to make the government smaller, at whatever cost to the running of the country, in order to lower the taxes on the rich. In order to do this, the cons have to prove to their satisfaction that the civil service is not worth the cost.
This is further complicated by the reaction to revelations of misdoing among the pols. Any instance of money changing the wrong hands is immediately followed by demands for more accounting of public money, which is then followed by accusations of too much government interference in peoples' (politicians, that is) lives at too much cost.
And so it goes.
Apparently, we aren't to be allowed to have an efficient government because it doesn't serve the needs of that small proportion of people who need to make money out of disfunction.
Perhaps it would serve everyone's needs better if we had official screwing centers for pols and lobbyists. Don't need to see exactly what happens, just need to know who and when.
But then there would be complaints about immorality among the political class (probably from those who wouldn't get any!)
-------------------- It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
Ah, it's about time the pols get screwed. They've been screwing the rest of us for years.
-------------------- We are punished by our sins, not for them. --Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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