# WTF is wrong with US society? Do we just accept total corruption? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 30, 2022, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978 "2022-03-30T14:30:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2022, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/61 "2022-04-05T14:23:14Z")
> [@bump](#): > > In his case, it makes a LOT of sense to hire him right out of the military for that job- his military experience is a huge asset to the job he’s doing. I’m sure that looks good on paper, but I don’t really see what having combat experience has to do with manufacturing. However, the connections that he has from being an officer with his experience, that seems _very_ valuable. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2022, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/62 "2022-04-05T14:32:22Z")
It’s more that he has a LOT of flight hours and for a while there was in command of one of the services’ aircraft test and evaluation unit. In other words, he has a lot of flight experience, has a lot of leadership experience, and on top of that, has that experience in both combat (useful for testing military aircraft), and in actual test-piloting type stuff. Why wouldn’t you want someone like him to be involved in doing the testing and evaluation for a military aircraft manufacturer? Makes more sense than an ex-airline pilot or a civilian engineer. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2022, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/63 "2022-04-05T22:25:11Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Why wouldn’t you want someone like him to be involved in doing the testing and evaluation for a military aircraft manufacturer? Makes more sense than an ex-airline pilot or a civilian engineer. In context, he seems to be a subject matter expert (SME) and those are considered valuable. That seems like a perfectly valid hiring criterion to me. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2022, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/64 "2022-04-05T22:39:57Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Why wouldn’t you want someone like him to be involved in doing the testing and evaluation for a military aircraft manufacturer? Makes more sense than an ex-airline pilot or a civilian engineer. You had indicated that he was in a fairly high management role, not that he was going to be a test pilot. I’m not sure why an ex-airline pilot or an engineer wouldn’t be just as good at that position. Unless all the managers ex-military pilots, then it doesn’t make any more sense to put him in that position than anyone else who currently is. But anyway, are you saying that he will never use or be asked to use his connections that he made while in the military? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2022, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/65 "2022-04-05T23:03:17Z")
Not at all; I’m basically saying what @Atamasama points out- he’s an excellent SME who happens to have leadership experience at a level at or above what this position would require. He’s likely a great hire. Same thing with a former boss-of-my-boss. USMC Colonel who was a Communications officer. So military IT, for all intents and purposes. He’s got the technical chops, work ethic, and the leadership experience, so why NOT hire him in the public sector into an IT position more or less commensurate with his military role? Similarly, another USMC Lt. Colonel was hired who ended up in the next level down, which is pretty much the same as their military ranks. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2022, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/66 "2022-04-06T00:10:45Z")
I worked 34 years in a DOD intelligence agency. Benign payroll padding used to be more common. I knew a retired O6 who got a well-paid contractor job, for several years, because he was described by the hiring official as their “human rolodex”. He could have written down all the knowledge they hired him for in a week or so. Today that would probably have been a shorter-term hire. It’s gotten a little better. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2022, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/67 "2022-04-06T01:10:32Z")
I have worked all my 30 years in the private sector. The first 10 in tech, where we did sell to government agencies, but I wasn’t in that sector of the business do I don’t know how procurement worked. Then 20 years in retail & restaurant chains, where we did deal with zoning boards, inspectors, assessors, tax collectors, etc. There are certainly towns, cities and counties where the governments are hard to deal with. But most of the time it’s because what we want is not in the local public interest! We will cry because a town will not let us build a back entrance to a shopping center that would allow 18 wheelers to go through a residential neighborhood at 3am. Or put up 60ft light poles that would shine into peoples houses until midnight. Or build an exit on to a main road without paying for the traffic light it will require. “We are being held up by the municipal mafia! Wah!” I have also spent about fifteen years serving on various appointed (i.e. unelected, unpaid) Town Committees and Boards. It’s a New England thing. So we are overseeing or advising on Town Department budgets, Affordable Housing projects, Road projects, playgrounds, putting land into conservation, use of technology in schools and government. Most of the other members of the boards and committees are either former Town officials (in this town of others) or work in industries with huge government involvement. Real estate developers, civil engineering firms, land use lawyers, public housing managers, tech firms who do a lot of government work, etc. There are very strict rules about conflicts of interest, and everyone takes them very seriously. I have never seen any kind of suspicious activity. What I have seen is wild accusations of sweetheart deals. Including deals I have signed off on and participated in the deliberation and review process. It’s always because of one of two reasons. People who just believe that all government is dirty. Or people who have a bad personal impact from the decision. We have people filing ethics complaints on the most spurious grounds because the land next to their house was not reserved for conservation, or was approved for housing. There have been dozens of complaints that I have seen. Not one has survived the first step in the process. But the mudslinging continues. People seem to believe that we are making back room deals right and left. I have NEVER once had a conversation about committee of board business with any other member outside is an open, minuted (and usually broadcast and recorded) meeting. No one ever believes this. In contrast in my private sector employment I’ve seen all kinds of shenanigans and self dealing. By some of the loudest critics of government inefficiency and corruption! There is a huge difference between the ethical standards of our US business, Western European business, Eastern European business and Asian businesses. The Western Europeans have much, much higher standards than the US. One guy went from Serbia to Germany and the to the US. He said he felt like when he moved from Germany to the US it was like going back to Serbia in many ways. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2022, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/68 "2022-04-06T01:49:36Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > And guess what? Out of the 10 largest settlements that the US government has obtained under that law, several of them are from countries that your link holds out as paragons of virtue, with Sweden, The Netherlands, France, and Germany all holding at least one slot in the top 10. Those are also the countries with among the highest GDP and so the most lucrative trade deals. So I’m not sure that this is such a good measure. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2022, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/69 "2022-04-06T02:11:40Z")
Also while European companies may behave very ethically in their home countries, paying out bribes in countries where that is commonplace is just business as usual. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2022, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/70 "2022-04-06T05:06:18Z")
When **not** in Rome… ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/71 "2022-04-13T13:27:51Z")
> [@bump](#): > > My point wasn’t that the US doesn’t have corruption, it’s that it doesn’t really have _much_ corruption, and what we do have is more in the vein of getting extraordinary stuff done, not merely in getting _anything_ done. > > It’s like a whole other order of magnitude of corruption in places like Turkey and Mexico from what my grad school friends were saying. The US is firmly in the same “tier” of corruption as the other Western European nations, I’d say. > > And I’m not saying it’s ok, just that the breathless pearl-clutching outrage from the OP is maybe a bit hyperbolic and misplaced. Anyone who thinks corruption is only a feature of capitalism should talk to people who lived through Soviet-style societies, in which bribery and corruption flourished on a grand scale. The consequences of such behavior could go well beyond waste of resources and public dissatisfaction (think Cherynobyl). ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/72 "2022-04-13T14:23:35Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Anyone who thinks corruption is only a feature of capitalism should And the Strawman of the Year award goes to…Jackmannii!!! Congratulations! Come on up and get your well-earned trophy! Seriously, no one on the planet, or on Mars, has ever suggested that corruption is limited to capitalist systems. I don’t think anyone would even suggest that it’s worse in capitalist systems or that there aren’t horrible, routine abuses that are inherent to non-capitalist systems. This is about as weak a defense against corruption in capitalist systems as I can imagine. “My house is flooded!” “Oh, stuff and nonsense, there are houses in Indonesia that have been washed away entirely.” ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/73 "2022-04-13T14:29:34Z")
It always helps to read your own thread, including post #2. Keep on clutching those pearls, it becomes you. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/74 "2022-04-13T15:32:15Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > It always helps to read your own thread, including post #2. I read the thread, including post #2, and no one made a claim that corruption is limited to capitalist systems. > [@Jackmannii](#): > > Keep on clutching those pearls, it becomes you. Keep fighting that strawman, it seems it’s all you are a match for. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/75 "2022-04-13T15:38:50Z")
The disconnect in your case goes beyond reading skills. Fortunately, there are [solutions](https://www.edx.org/learn/critical-thinking-skills). ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/76 "2022-04-13T15:46:14Z")
Do you really think that making things up and admonishing people over things that only exist in your fucked up imagination somehow wins you internet points? I’ve honestly never understood the motivations of people like you. Do you take a crap in the middle of a Denny’s and laugh at all the people giving you disgusted looks as well? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/77 "2022-04-13T16:34:50Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > Indeed, one thing that Republicans overlook in their quest for minority power is how difficult governance will be with a recalcitrant majority chafing under it. They’re looking at Russian leadership for examples to follow in this regard. ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/78 "2022-04-13T16:35:52Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > It always helps to read your own thread, including post #2. > > Keep on clutching those pearls, WOW! You’re not only a [checks forum] gigantic asshole, but you’re utterly unself-aware. Did you pull #2 out of your own ass at random, or was there something in Stranger’s post that you tortured into seeming relevant to your case, such as it is? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/79 "2022-04-13T16:38:09Z")
Show me on this doll where the scary Marxist touched you. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978/80 "2022-04-13T16:40:45Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > It always helps to read your own thread, including post #2. You’d have to be extraordinarily dim to read post #2 in this thread, and come away with the idea that the argument there is, “Only capitalism is corrupt.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-wrong-with-us-society-do-we-just-accept-total-corruption/961978.md?page=5)