Keeping corruption at bay

Just as (almost) all people are more or less easily corrupted, all governments are corrupt. It's not a matter of whether but just how much. This is why exceedingly corrupt governmental leaders can point their fingers at moderately corrupt governments (like ours) and make the claim that there isn't any difference between themselves and others.

Are there any mimimally corrupt national governments? If so, I suspect this would be the social democratic governments of the Scandanavian countries, but I don't know that for sure.

When it comes to electing public officials, we must acknowledge that invariably there will be some swilling at the public trough.

Politics is war, and the spoils of war are what people seek by running for office or in voting for a given candidate.

So when you go to vote, if corruption is a big concern, then you should vote for the candidate who seems least likely to abuse the privileges of office. When we go to the polls, we should be careful to "choose our own poison" so that at least we can tolerate, if not appreciate, what the elected person does after getting in. We need to be as wise as possible in order to keep our government as minimally corrupt as possible

Gary Whitesell

213 W. 21st