Ethics Commissions/Administration

Violence happens. The world is violent. People are naturally violent. This is what people say.

Politicians are all crooks. Government ethics is an oxymoron. Don't be so naïve. This is what people say.

As Michael N. Nagler says in his book The Search for a Nonviolent Future, "when we have negative expectations...

Update: March 19, 2011 (see below)

Last December I wrote a long blog post 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 this pay-to-play culture, although you wouldn't know it from...

In his book The Search for a Nonviolent Future, 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 wielding an unexpected power." You may need to read this sentence over a few times before it completely sinks in.

The Courage of Ethics...

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.

What this does is prevent an awareness of the problem of unethical conduct in general and what constitutes a poor ethics...

Conning Citizens
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...

What politicians say about a government ethics issue is sometimes so devoid of a basic understanding of government ethics that it's hard to believe that they are not being willfully ignorant (i.e., not discussing ethics matters with ethics professionals) or cynically disingenuous. If only there could be some requirement that, before an official opens his or her mouth to say something about government ethics, he or she actually discussed the matter with someone who does understand it. Not any...