That’s bullshit. Cops tend to be underpaid and if not over worked, then over stressed. Sure, it may be a cushy job in some towns but in others it’s anything but and knowing you have the support of your community makes a big fucking difference. If you can’t see that then you’re not in touch with the reality of what it means to do the job.
The only thing that is bullshit is making up excuses for corruption among our citizens and public officials.
I am aware of the fact that the word “morality” has long been so out of fashion as to invite ridicule from
most people who consider themselves sophisticated realists. I guess I should be thankful not more than 7%
of the population seems to sign on with the degraded, immoral “realism” expressed in the post above
that I am replying to.
In the same way, questions are often written so that a careful listener must give a misleading answer. If they asked, “have you [American] ever paid a bribe to a government official?” and you have, but only when travelling abroad or in your country of birth, you’d have to answer “yes” even though you have never done so in the USA, or else second-guess the question.
You got away with drunk driving, four times, and you’re complaining about how somebody else isn’t racked with guilt over giving away free meals to cops?
Regards,
Shodan
You obviously have no concept of what constitutes ethical behavior in any formal or rigorous sense but merely the typical bourgeois conceptions of what such behavior might be. Asking you to understand things from a broader perspective is obviously too much of a strain for you. 
Just got back from our company’s bribery and corrupt practices training.
Even the lawyers there had to think pretty hard about even a modest fraction of American’s paying anything resembling a bribe. Or even a “facilitation payment” to low-level functionaries to smooth processing of documents or applications.
The course mostly focused on bribes to foreign officials or foreign officials coming in and requesting them and how to deal with them and what constituted acceptable practices, e.g. gift of a coffee mug with company logo = ok (even then, with certain caveats), first class airfare for wife and kids of official + free trip to Disneyland = not ok.
That said, according to them, apparently there are a few known cases of agents of various companies and government officials who do offer or accept bribes, but the DOJ has been really cracking down, especially over the last 5-6 years. And again, it mostly involves foreign entities.
Yes and yes, and see my post #60 to this thread for how I evaluate my illegal behavior,
and contrast it with the other member’s self-evaluation:
(from post #52):
Classy, huh?-- to brag about how your serial payola gets you not only protection, but forgiveness
for what might reasonably be inferred as serial reckless driving.
Most situations are not black and white, including this one. Something doesn’t have to be either completely unacceptable or light-shining-from-heavens holy. There’s a sliding scale between giving something to someone as a friend, giving it to them so they won’t be an enemy, giving it in hopes they’ll treat you better, giving it with an unspoken agreement that they’ll treat you better, and giving it with an explicit agreement.
Bwaaahahahah. A classic example of text lifted straight out of Sophomoric Socialism 101.
Except the green light for bribery might be a new twist- the Socialists of prior ages took
a dim view of all forms of public corruption, at least officially.
You’re right-- my perspective will never be broad enough to condone payola in any form. Silly me!
Thanks for proving my point.
I am not surprised by the numbers. Is it rampant? Not for most of the population obviously, but for a certain sector, I do believe it is more common. That is the poor, urban and rural. Too many have to visit prisons to visit a sibling or other relative. And my understanding is that prison guards are notoriously corrupt (all the drugs and other merchandise is getting in somehow.)
And many urban poor work in governmental jobs, often the lowest level clerks, but also the ones that can make sure your paperwork is processed sooner than later. It may just be $20 once a year, but it it not uncommon. And it is most often neighbors helping neighbors. Maybe in return for just a six pack or package of steaks, depending on how much red tape was cut. Considering 40 million Americans are in poverty, and about 40 million more are barely above it, a high percentage of corruption at the bottom would cause the 7% to 17% overall rate.
I would like to see a demographic breakdown of the sample and see if a correlation with income exists.
Also in my own experience, though not recent, I had an uncle who was ‘arrested’ in Mexico in a Texas border town and was not processed until my family paid about $3000 dollars. I also worked for a company during the dot-com era who essentially paid a bribe to officials to be able to operate in China. The deal collapsed (and so did the company later that year for unrelated reasons,) but they were out a cool $1 million paid to a ‘consultant’. And I was told that was just the nature of doing business there. Pay to play. And while China has cracked down on the worst corruption, much of the above still exists. And the survey did not specify which government the bribe was paid to, only if residents of whichever country paid bribes.
All said though, considering the reports on other nations, Transparency International needs to take steps to improve its methodology and see what trends hold true over time. And it is the leader in exposing and fighting corruption around the globe. If their methods are weak, I do not know of any group that provides better reporting. The majority of the corruption listed above is never going to make the FBI crime stats.
I recall many years ago my BIL (who had the highest property taxes in his town), telling the story… He used to give a bottle of scotch as a Christmas gift to each of the town garbagemen that serviced his house. That one year (late 80’s? Early 90’s?), the stock market was doing poorly and he gave one bottle to the lot (2? 3?). For the next few weeks his garbage was frequently spilled or missed. He went down to the offfice and had a little chat with them in front of their superior, and all was well.
He also mentioned that getting anything building modification related done in Manhattan (which he did from time to time)was difficult due to the need to expedite things with building inspectors.
Similarly, a person from Egypt that I met recently mentiond the issue with “facilitating payments”. The government pays so little, a porter at a hotel catering to westerners can make more in a few days than a government-paid teacher makes in a month. (450LE a few years ago, so about $70 a month. I wonder why the locals are rioting?) the result is the teachers do very little productive on the clock, and make up for it by offering to tutor the kids after hours for the appropriate fee.
This is the danger, like with a petulant waiter, the “gratitude” amount becomes the expected then demanded norm, with revenge exacted if not paid. I have heard of a lot of businesses that are willing to “express gratitude” to the police for their community service as mentioned in an earlier post. One fellow (restaurant-with-bar owner) mentioned that in return it meant they would make the extra effort to respond quickly to problems; but nobody in that situation ever mentioned they expected the reverse - “if we don’t give freebies they’ll let us suffer”. More likely the thought that response time to any non-emergency is already long enough, it can’t but help to speed things up.
However, to retiterate the point of this thread, I have never encountered an instance in the USA or Canada where someone demanded, or the norm expected, that I “bribe” a government official in any way. Indeed, it would probably result in exposure, especially (as noted above) in this day of anoymous internet and cell-phone video.
The main point is that in a non-authoritarian society, as long as people care, almost nobody is powerful enough to avoid scrutiny. City oficials can be criticised if necessary from outside city limits, national news organizations are bigger than any one politician, laws can be enforced afetr the next election so immunity does not last forever, etc.
Payola to obtain protection from on-duty officers outside their assigned
patrol areas is always bribery. Payola to avoid traffic citation is always bribery.
There is no way for a 3rd party to distinguish this from 2-3-4-5 below.
Therefore it should be unlawful in all cases.
(2) It is unambiguously extortion if not bribery to have to make payola
to a public official to avoid his enmity.
(3) (4) (5) It is unambiguously extortion if not bribery to have to make
payola to a public official to obtain better treatment, no matter what
form the agreement takes.
Yeah, I don’t put giving a cop a cup of coffee or discounted sandwich or whatever “payola.” Do you really think he’s going to treat me any better because I gave him a coupla bucks of free stuff?
I have heard of instances where parole officers and government prosecutors have been bribed. So, yeah, I believe it.
So why do you give him free stuff that you don’t give to other people? I wouldn’t call it a bribe, but I would certainly call any cop that accepted freebies corrupt, if only in a mild way.
The question isn’t whether bribery happens but whether 7% of the US population has engaged in it within the past year.
Right, and the ‘within the past year’ part is the key. Unless we are supposed to believe that it is the same 7% of people that just bribe each other back and forth constantly, that figure also implies that the percentage of people who have engaged in it any point in their lives is much higher (several times higher at least if we assume that most people would only do it a few times in their life).
That doesn’t match up anyone’s perception of life in America that I am aware of. The ‘within the past year’ qualification is what makes it really implausible and it also complicates the survey and the way that people interpret the questions.
A material (and thus more sincere) “Thank You” in a world where words are cheap?
I can agree with the spirit of this, but as has been asked: how much “gratitude” is to be expected from something with a tangible value of a few bucks? In the Starbucks drive through I sometimes pay for the guy behind me. I don’t expect anything in return, I just want them to have a nice day. My ulterior motive is no less noble–I’d like to think they have a better attitude throughout the day and that their attitude might slightly improve someone else’s day. Maybe I buy a cop a cup of coffee just so he feels his community is grateful for him doing an unpleasant job and he continues to soldier on in the spirit of serving as opposed to enforcing.
Pretty much. I give reasonable military discounts, too (on the order of $500 on wedding photography services) if asked. I don’t expect them to protect me any more or less because I gave them a discount.