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Originally Posted by urville
When tis my wife and i'm a supreme court judge? Are you joking? Yes of course, I'd be certain of it. No, it would be a discussion before I even took the bench obviously. If i dot his there are certaint hings we cant do, is that okay? Now your being hyperbolic.
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Is being a Supreme Court Justice require your spouse to forfeit her rights as an individual? Does it require the spouse to get "approval" for her actions? These questions are not hyperbolic. My question to you was how far are you willing to take this. It is easy to address in a Leave it To Beaver, 1950's tradition of marriage, but this is not 1950. Imagine - well Mrs. you are married to Clarence Thomas - you need to get his permission before we hire you...??? Yes, we will sell the car to you as soon as you bring permission from your husband, because after all you are no longer an individual when you get married....???? Or, if he doesn't know everything his wife is doing you would subject him to some form of discipline???
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Those examples are not indicative of what we are talking about here... really? This is about hiding money from the wrong people for the wrong reasons.
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If the issue is really about money, the best way to get the information is to have them submit their tax forms, even if they file separately.
I bet you could ask many married professionals with separate careers or entrepreneurs how much their spouse made and the best you would get is an estimate. Not even to mention those who have complicated financial arrangements, i.e. was the income to her business, to her personally, a trust, a charitable flow through, etc. To the guy who is a middle manager married to a person who is a teacher and they do a 1040EZ, that is pretty simple. But for some it ain't that simple. There are some rich people who could even tell you what they make without consulting an army of accountants and lawyers, even then the number can be disputed by reasonable people. All this with no intent to hide anything.
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In public service your accounts and activities should be just that public.
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I fundamentally disagree. I think even public officials should have some privacy rights.
There are many highly qualified people who don't serve the public good for that very reason. Our question should be, do the requirements actually make things better?
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it serves a very distinct and good purpose to make sure your not getting money from or giving money to the wrong kinds of things, things that create a conflict of interest. Thats the point.
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And I bet you want to judge what the "wrong kinds of things" are. And that you will know it when you see it, so you need to see everything...then if you have a political agenda, I bet you find something!
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Conflicts of interest. Thats what this is. We're talking hundreds of thousands and considerable influence. It wouldnt matter to me if they were FOR the cause, its not right.
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Right, conflicts of interest is what you are talking about. To me the bigger point is actual fraud and deceit.
Remember Enron?
They had a nice well written Code of Ethics. In fact it was more like a 64 page booklet. Every employee had to agree to it, every once in a while managers would hold special meetings talking about it, it was only printed on paper blessed by leaders of every major religion...(I just made that last part up)...
The point is not in vague wording regarding conflicts and ethics but in the actual culture of an organization and the behaviors of the people! It is very easy to have a real conflict of interest and do the right thing. And the pretense that vague words on a piece of paper sets the tone for ethical behavior is laughable to me. I would rather have people who will do what is right even when faced with a conflict. It does not take spending much time to know when you are dealing with a person who will do the right thing - regardless of politics.