Violence happens. The world is violent. People are naturally violent.
This is what people say.<br>
<br>
Politicians are all crooks. Government ethics is an oxymoron. Don't be
so naïve. This is what people say.<br>
<br>

It's always nice to know that your discipline is at the heart of what
it means to be human. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/science/15humans.html&quot; target="”_blank”">In
Tuesday's New York <i>Times</i> Science Section</a>,
Nicholas Wade wrote:<ul>

In his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Search-Nonviolent-Future-Ourselves-Families/dp/19…; target="”_blank”">The
Search
for
a
Nonviolent
Future</a>, Michael N. Nagler talks about two models for looking at
violence that are also relevant to government ethics, the medical model and the educational model.<br>
<br>

According to <a href="http://www.wkow.com/Global/story.asp?S=14276368&quot; target="”_blank”">articles
on the WKOW TV (Madison, WI)  website</a>, this morning a
Wisconsin judge placed a restraining order to stop a controversial
budget repair bill from becoming law. The principal cause of action was
a violation of the state's open meetings law. However, the names of
four legislative leaders were taken off the suit due to their

<b>Update:</b> March 19, 2011 (see below)<br>
<br>
Last December I wrote <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/pay-play-culture-prince-georges-count…; target="”_blank”">a
long blog post</a> about the pay-to-play culture of Prince George's
County, Maryland. The new county executive and the county's state
representatives appear to have been working hard to make changes to end

In his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Search-Nonviolent-Future-Ourselves-Families/dp/19…; target="”_blank”">The
Search
for
a
Nonviolent
Future</a>, Michael N. Nagler wrote, "Anyone who plucks up
the courage to offer an
opponent a way out of their conflict can find herself or himself

On Sunday, the New York <i>Times</i> ran <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/nyregion/13homes.html&quot; target="”_blank”">an
article based on a long-term investigation</a> of group homes for the
developmentally disabled in New York state. It found that "in hundreds
of cases reviewed by The Times, employees who sexually abused, beat or
taunted residents were rarely fired, even after repeated offenses and,

Another way in which violence and unethical conduct are similar is the
way they are handled by the news media. Just as violence is generally
discussed
in terms of separate
battles and wars, day by day, unethical conduct is discussed in terms
of separate
scandals and individuals, day by day. And unethical conduct is
responded to in the worst possible atmosphere.<br>
<br>
What this does is prevent an awareness of the problem of
unethical conduct in general and what constitutes a poor ethics
environment. In

<b>Conning Citizens</b><br>
Car towing is one of the biggest temptations in local government. A
police officer goes to the scene of an accident, and one or more
drivers needs to have their cars towed. The drivers are injured or at least in
shock, and rarely thinking straight. The officer has been offered so
many dollars per car that he steers to a towing company or a bodywork
shop with a tow truck. No one will know and no one will be hurt. It
might be called a kickback, but it's no more than doing a service for

<br><br>
Nonviolence, as Michael N. Nagler presents it in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Search-Nonviolent-Future-Ourselves-Families/dp/19…; target="”_blank”">The
Search
for
a
Nonviolent
Future</a>, is not just a way of standing up to
dictators, as in Egypt, or trying to change discriminatory laws, as in