What is Corruption?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption
Political corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity for personal gain.
It’s essentially the protection racket: unless you pay me, you will be threatened and you will not get what you want; even though they are legally required to provide aservice.
Corruption: why is this a secular (real) sin?
It causes individual and societal harm causing everyone to be poorer and bullies to be crueler.
Because it breaks the golden rule of ethical requirements.
Kant: Categorical Imperative. The same rule must apply to everyone.
Copernicus: Anthropomorphic principle. You are not the center of world,
Dawkins: Intelligent Design: Morals must be supported with reason.
Dennet: The basis of morals come from evolution, but they are not constrained by it.
Ethics must be universal: All men are created equal in the eyes of the law (the state must not play favorites.)
Why must ethical laws be universal? It’s the only way to guarantee morality for everyone.
If ethics depends upon who is who, then ethics invariably becomes an excuse to make others suffer in society while you immorally profit off of their suffering because of greed. That’s a secular sin.
Non-universality allows for other non-optimal societies: illiberal democracy.
It would allow for treating some citizens as second class with fewer rights.
Essentially slavery, racism and nationalism seem to be okay in a society that failed this moral test. This is not a set of ethics for a society I want to live in.
Definition of political corruption: personal benefit for providing a public good.
This is the basis of Royalty. All the benefits, none of the cost. It makes the law a matter of money, power and contacts; not an unbiased, fair and equal system. It makes a society poorer and crueler. It is how modern society fights the greedy and cruel that wish to profit personally by using their power to exploit others. This ends up making a country poorer and less safe.
It’s why emoluments are forbidden by our constitution (payments by foreign countries to our politicians.)
It’s why bribes are illegal. You pay the service fee to the government, not the inspector. So they can’t be tempted to ignore the regulations and safety requirements… so your house doesn’t collapse in an earthquake because your concrete company was paid off to deliver a non-compliant product. It makes society work. Corruption makes societies that fail.
Corruption is insidious. It’s extremely hard to rip it out of a system without serious and dangerous work. When the board of directors of a hospital in Russia take the finances from the government meant to pay their doctors for themselves, the doctors become impoverished and have to request payments from their patients to survive themselves, thus corruption is self-propagating! One person’s corruption spreads throughout the economy and poisons many more transactions than just the original corrupt stealing.
What’s Trumps stance on corruption? He’s for it. He’s written several EOs endorsing it: he’s not enforcing the foreign corruption practices act which forbids US companies from bribing foreign officials. He’s putting up opportunities for corruption in public: meme coin, truth social, his properties: where foreigners can bribe him or pay tribute… He accepts foreign cash as donations laundered through non-profits that can hide the sources (NRA forwarded him $70M in donations, financed by Russia.) @GOP stopped foreign reporting requirements. (thanks, McConnell)
He blatantly asks for corporate sponsorships for his inauguration, his energy policy, his tax policy and of his Easter egg hunt, all unaccounted for and which goes directly into his pocket. This is legalized corruption. Elon Musk is just as morally bankrupt as Trump. He’s in government, attempting to unconstitutionally eradicate those agencies that regulate his companies and complaining that American’s are boycotting his Tesla’s while he burns the unsellable cars for the insurance money (who else profits?) For the past 250 years prior to Trump, Presidents and Cabinet members put any business dealings they had into blind trusts just to avoid even the appearance of corruption. This no longer seems to be the case with the current Republican party.
It’s a breakdown in societal norms. It’s a push to treat people differently depending on their loyalty and tribute. It’s discrimination and bigotry and it makes our entire society poorer, crueler, and more stratified. Nothing a sane, ethical person would want.
It’s one of the worst secular (real) sins possible in the world.
How to prevent corruption from spreading throughout a society? Prosecution from the government (state, local, federal) refusal by the populace to submit. Do not surrender. More laws that stop the blatant legal corruption in our government such as trading on inside information in the stock market by our representatives.
Let’s look at a particular case. Adams, mayor of NYC took bribes, favors and donations from Turkish companies and officials and in return ordered approval of building permits and ignored other regulations and reporting requiremnts for his bribers. This was under prosecution during the last administration and was shut down with an ‘I promise to be loyal to Trump and his policies’. And they want this to be hung over his head so they can bring it back at any time. Absolutely corrupt on both sides. Hopefully, the judge will fix this, because the governor of NY, who could fix this, is too scared of Trump to do her official duty.
Let’s take another example. Tariffs. Companies petition the government and donate to political parties to remove tariffs on their products. Politicians return the favor to their voters, the exception data show this plainly and clearly, exemptions are available for purchase.
Same for the immigration ‘gold’ cards. The $5M for US citizenship is easier than bribing random immigration officials.
But the worst legalized corruption is from Citizen United where essentially unlimited donations to politicians are allowed and made directly for new laws and new tax breaks to be purchased. This corruption leads to it being over ten times more likely for a bill to be passed that supports the billionaire’s interests versus an ordinary American's interest. This is the road to oligarchy and dictatorship. We are well on our way to the broligarchy. This will not be good for ordinary American citizens, no matter how much Trump lies about it all.
Overturning Citizens United and continuing to reform election financing should be a high priority to make the society reflect the citizens ideals, not raw money and power.
Impeachment is my recommendation of how to get corruption out of the government. Success has been sporadic.
Thanks for reading.
-Dr. Mike
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