for transparent and inescapable accountability to unequivocal standards of conduct and competence for public servants within their public service
and every other politician will be among the last.
When incompetent and corrupt politicians talk
about "ethics reform"; what they mean is that;
they will begrudgingly give up a very few of the most egregious and indefensible of their influence peddling practices by making them against the "law".
What honest and competent politicians mean by ethics reform
- is to identify an unequivocal higher standard of conduct*
- and then to establish a system that is
powerful enough, to hold even the most powerful
among them, accountable to that standard
even against their will.
by a public servant, is to ensure that
that power can not be abused by anyone, ever.
Most especially, not even by themselves, in a moment
or in a lifetime of weakness.
If only legislators could be convinced that
they will not be reelected this year
if they don't get this right,
and pretty damn quickly.
Oh that there were a New Mexican politician
with the balls to draw a line on the floor,
and have people pick the right side of that line,
as a non negotiable precondition of
their continued service in the roundhouse.
Oh that there were a New Mexican newspaperman
with the balls to insist that one stand up.
Thomas J Lang could actually make that happen
if he were about telling the truth
about incompetent and corrupt public servants.
Oh that only he were.
There is a reward for readers who helps distribute this post;
you may count yourself among those who actually
did something to end the culture of corruption and
incompetence in public service, that keeps this state
50th in everything.
... an unequivocal higher standard of conduct*
*...higher than the law at least, which at it very, very best
represents only the lowest standard of human conduct
that most decent people are willing to tolerate.
Any other standard of conduct at all
is a higher standard of conduct than the law.
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