>
> On Mar 11, 2008, at 8:57 PM, Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
>
> Apptech wrote:
>
>> I wondered if the truth that I proposed was so self evident as to  
>> be not
>> worth stating - but it obviously isn't.
>
> Whenever I hear "self-evident truth" my radar goes beep :)
>
>> From experience (a lot of it) I know that quite a few things that  
>> looked
> self-evident to me some time ago don't look so today. I also know that
> whatever seemed self-evident to me didn't seem so to many others.  
> This has
> severely discredited the concept of "self-evident truth" in my  
> universe --
> to the degree that it seems self-evident that there is no such  
> thing as
> self-evident truth :)
>
>
>> So I asserted that it's an article of faith that corruption is bad,
>
> Maybe we should try to get a common understanding of what  
> corruption is, or
> better, what we mean when we use the word. Some cases are (or seem)  
> clear,
> but as you reach the borders, things become muddy.
>
> When you're discussing a business deal, and you get a trip to  
> Hawaii, $50k
> in cash and a free pass to a whore house near your hotel from one  
> of the
> competitors, you accept and give them the deal, that's generally  
> considered
> corrupt.
>
> When you're discussing a business deal, and you get a paid night  
> with a
> escort from one of the competitors, you accept and give them the deal,
> that's also generally considered corrupt.
>
> When you're discussing a business deal, and you spend a night with  
> one of
> the ladies from one of the competitors, and give them the deal,  
> that's also
> often considered corrupt.
>
> When you're discussing a business deal, and you have a few nice,  
> personal
> chats with one of the ladies from one of the competitors, and give  
> them the
> deal, that depends on other criteria whether it's considered corrupt.
>
> When you're an outgoing personality and have nice, personal chats  
> with all
> the people from the crews of all competitors, that's usually not  
> considered
> corrupt. (Applying this change back up the row leads to some  
> interesting
> situations :)
>
> Anyway, what's corruption and what's not is not always so easy to
> distinguish. Being against corruption is right there with being for  
> world
> peace...
>
>
>> and how some clearly bad corruption can be 'winked at' because it
>> achieves good ends. Or desirable ends. Or ends that we desire.
>
> I hope that's not in response to me -- it's not at all what I meant.
>
>
>>> Corruption is an important and necessary part of any society.
>>
>> Yes. It shows how far from ideal your society is and how far it  
>> has yet
>> to go to get things right.
>
> I don't think that corruption is a societal thing. It is always  
> between
> (usually two) people. Who (almost) always have the choice to do it  
> or not
> to do it. What is societal is how acceptable the behavior is. Which  
> doesn't
> change anything in the substance of the act.
>
>
>>> It's quite difficult to tell where the "good" corruption ends and  
>>> the
>>> "bad" corruption begins.
>>
>> Terminally so. The only way to be sure is to root out the lot :-).
>
> Rather than telling where the good corruption ends and the bad  
> corruption
> begins, you seem to say that what I call good corruption is not  
> corruption,
> and what you call corruption is what I call bad corruption. The  
> difficulty
> to draw the line is the same. No rooting out does away with this.
>
> Gerhard

Difficult or not, I draw a line and act on it.  I get annoyed by  
people who point out how difficult it is to make judgments or make  
choices. ( I think they use this difficulty to avoid doing  
anything )  Yes..... making a choice, drawing a line is difficult,  
and then I go ahead and do it.  And my primary axiom is to preserve  
the maximum freedom for the maximum number of people.
cc

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