Why do we need ethics legislation?

Question

I find it curious that congress is spending time on ethics legislatoin. The concept of ethics would denote no need to define ethics, as an ethical person is naturally ethical. If one requires a guideline for ethics in order to govern our country, perhaps there are no ethics. That they even have to ponder what is right and wrong shows in the results that they have produced in the last decade for the lower to middle class, which is nearly 80% of the population. Nothing. Raise minimum wage to $7.25, try living on that. A living wage is over $21 an hour in order to keep from accruing debt. There have been no real outstanding acheivements in legislation for a very long time and I for one think it is high time for them to do something for the people they are leading. Why are there homeless people? Why are there hungry children? Why is there no medical care for 50% of the population?
I mean for real, they need to start working on thier jobs, and stop playing office polotics.

Answer 1

We already have a "Code of Ethics for Government Service" Public Law 96-303 passed unanimously by Congress in 1980.
http://www.houstonprogressive.org/ethics.html

The problem is that government and corporations are not following it. Instead, there is corruption, crime and oppression of one group by another for selfish or commercial profit, exploitation of division and conflict instead of reconciliation and cooperation.

If all citizens, corporations, and government entities alike were held to uphold and enforce the democratic values in the Constitution, specifically Amendments 1-10 and 14 for "equal protection under law," then we would not breed more crime and violence, corruption and any social problems costing us so much money. Instead we would all be too busy petitioning one another as equals, to resolve grievances and solve problems, and investing our time and energy and resources in creating stable social structures for a sustainable society and economy.

What we need is mass education on the Constitutional and Ethics policies we already have, and a committed concerted effort to enforce these cooperatively so that everyone benefits.

Answer 2

To answer some of your questions....

1. Your are right in that if a person is truly ethical then they would have no need to create leglslation.....and if there are people who need it they should not have been elected in the first place.

2. The minimum wage does need increased, however around here where I am from, a person without children could live on 10 an hour.....I for one am not going to pay someone that much to flip a hamburger and McD's or to fill pop machines. In my mind those jobs are only worth 7-8 bucks an hour.....and as far as avoiding debt....in order to do that....you would have to make a lot more that 21 an hour....and you are not driving a decent car are not living in a decent home.....there are not to many people I know that can just write a check for 50,000-100,000 for a decent home.....and as far as anything else...people run up credit card debt, lines of credit at stores, etc......well that's there own fault not the gov.

3. There are homeless people yes, but most of them are homeless because of mistakes they have made....yes I know there are some who couldn't help what happened, but a good chuck of them have lost everything because of their own mistakes and stupidity.

4. There are hungry children because some people just don't realize what birth control is and that maybe they should not have kids if they cannot support them.

5. Health care I agree with, although care is available for almost anyone........we need to find a way for more people to afford health insurance.....many small buisness just can't afford it without going under.....but inorder to do that we would have to use more gov. money and that would mean more taxes....so its a lose lose situation.

Answer 3

We need the legislation for those that are not ethical. We need a way to get rid of them when they are caught on ethics violations that are not illegal yet.

Your "facts" are not correct. 80% of the population is not Lower Middle Class
It does not take $21 an hour to avoid death I make half that and do not accrue debt.
Medical care is available to all Americans, Some may not have insurance (but even that number is nowhere near 50%)

You should really not be making up "facts", especially ones that are so obviously false.

Answer 4

There is little ethics in Congress.

Not sure what ethics has to do with authoritarian dictation of wages, except that it is unethical to vote on such an unconstutional law.

Most homeless people are there because they are drug addicts or mentally ill.

And most, if not all, of the population can get medical care. There is a number of people, not insignificant, without medical INSURANCE, but they still have access to CARE.

Then there is the issue of the Constitutionality of all the benificence you would grant to other people by taking money from MY pocket.

Answer 5

Ethics in government is irrelevant. The only question that should be asked is "Is it legal?"

If it is, let them do it, and if their constituents don't like it, they will be thrown out of office.

If it isn't, arrest them and charge them with a crime.

And all the social programs you described is Socialism; taking from one group of people and giving to another. How about a government that promotes capitalism and free enterprise, and let people pay their own way?

Answer 6

The Democrats want to enact ethics legislation so they can violate the rules and blame the Republicans for it.