Another call for ethics reform

While I do not disagree with the reports purpose, or even its recomendations I have a problem with some of its tone.  While it is worthwhile to listen to the business community, some of their comments on government and how we can fix it reflect their non-understanding of the venue of public policy.  At times in the report, they seem to be simply name-calling and resorting to an anti-public sector bias that borders on mean-spiritedness.  In not understanding the process of governance and discounting it based on some of its shortcomings they cannot offer meaningful solutions that can be taken seriously.  Their recomendations seem constructed of whole cloth and tossed out of an angry hat, with no eye to how they could be practically implemented.  Bottom line, is that the business community too often assumes that solving government's problems would be easy if only those governing had as fine a pedigree as their private sector counterparts.  And that seems to be the tone of this report as well.

--Saint Joe--

I haven't yet read the report and look forward to doing so; but sometimes "ya don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-xIulyVsG8

BTW

Dr Marbach, If you haven't read it, you should get hold of Frances Fox Piven's "Why Americans Still Don't Vote".

If you have read it; you might want to try writing a piece that boils down the academic discussion into the terminology of realpolitic. (OR should we say "realpolitiker" ;-)

From Frederick Douglass

If there is no struggle there is no progress......Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

People are leaving because of high taxes, big government and the oblivious liberal idiots and insane people running our state.  The only people who don't realize this are government employees and newspaper editorial writers.

A careful examination of this "study" is typical.  Come up with a predetermined conclusion and then create a "survey" with loaded questions to back up the conclusion you want people to believe is true.

Professor, did any of your questions deal with high taxes? 

For small business owners strugging to survive in this Marxist run economy on incomes a lot less than yours, there are other concerns besides whether some lawyer is buying a $500 ticket to a fundraiser.

It's pretty clear to everyone reading this website that the old axiom "those who can't do, teach", certainly applies to politics.  If ethics were such a big issue, Doug Forrester would be Governor, Tom Kean would be Senator and Leonard Lance would be Senate President. 

From Frederick Douglass

If there is no struggle there is no progress......Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

.....an apprpriate penalty from a purely emotionallay reactive perspective; I have to say I'm opposed.

I do agree with you, however, in the sense that those who are convicted of the most egregious forms of public corruption, i.e. large scale/major betrayal of the public trust should suffer life imprisonment without parole in the general prison population; no club feds or cushy cells for "VIPs".  These cretins are as dangerous to democracy as any terrorist who sets off a bomb.  

Many many more deaths are caused by the sequeli of corruption in high places than by the relatively small number of crazed hate filled monsters who are clearly terrorists in the conventional sense.

If it became clear that their lives were in genuine peril; then a minimal accomodation could be made.

The people who commit these kinds of white collar/political crimes tend to be very calculating. If/when the penalties are draconian they will indeed be strongly motivated to "go straight". Deturrence will work better for this population/category than for any other.

Meanwhile, let's get about the business of making public corruption actually be criminal. As it stands now; clearly corrupt practices are 100& legal and these bums are laughing at us all the way to their offshore banks.

PS

To "Saint Joe" I'm far from "powerful" LOL. I'm just a nobody with no money and no connections.

If there is any power in anything I say; it's because other people might recognize the truth and be affected by it. It has nothing to do with me as a person.

MY own sense is that people do their best when motivated by their own Consciences. Unfortunately, there are too many people in office and in the private sector who are sociopaths and to whom appeals to Conscience will always fail. That's why we need strong laws with very sharp teeth.

From Frederick Douglass

If there is no struggle there is no progress......Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.