Three rules for British royals. It's not hard, really.


Vort
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21 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

It occurred to me today that Her Majesty the Queen was still a young mother when President McKay uttered his famous line about “no other success can compensate for failure in the home”.

At the risk of saying "poor little rich boy", I feel honest sorrow for the UK's so-called Royal Family. Sure, they have money, fame, and power, three things that most people crave (though I may never understand the desire for fame or notoriety—sounds pretty awful to me). But they don't strike me as especially happy people. Watching the public drama of the Royal Family seems to be one shameful embarrassment after another. I would never want to subject my own family to that kind of public scrutiny.

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5 hours ago, anatess2 said:

So graft is compensation... that makes absolutely no sense.  It's like saying, I stole $100 from my mother's purse = I got compensated $100 for being my mother's daughter.

Graft, as understood in American English, is a form of political corruption, being the unscrupulous use of a politician's authority for personal gain.  The reason I call it compensation is because many in politics believe that they earned their benefits by serving.  In the above definition the term "unscrupulous" is quite ambiguous.   Mostly unscrupulous is defined as without morals - rather than a clear definition relating to breaking the law.  With very few exceptions when a politician is faced directly and proven they have profited (unscrupulously with graft) - their response is that they did not break the law or if they did break the law - they claim it was not intentional.  But politician have become expert in taking advantages of ambiguities in the law.

If we follow my comments through this thread - you will note that I was responding to the notion that by paying a politician a exorbitant salary and benefits - that it minimizes what you are labeling as graft.  I completely disagree - in fact I am of the notion that exorbitant salary and benefits acts to attract those more interested in personal profits than serving the public.  This concept parallels D&D section 121 concerning authority and exercising unrighteous dominion.  If you like you can substitute unscrupulous for unrighteous dominion and vice versa.   My point - and I feel most strongly about this point - is that those that seek authority (including public service) ought to be willing to make a personal sacrifice to do so - otherwise they will by their nature seek graft and unscrupulous compensations for their so called services.

By the way; the ancient term for immoral unscrupulous compensations for both political and private sectors - is filthy lurker.  I realize that there is a fine line between my thinking and yours concerning this matter - but in general I believe that one of the great temptations and sins of worldliness (the natural man) is the seeking of riches.  I realize that for some this concept or principle of seeking riches is somewhat ambiguous - but in my mind the ambiguity is a means of mitigation to rationalizing succumbing to supposed meaningless temptation.

 

The Traveler

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9 hours ago, Vort said:

At the risk of saying "poor little rich boy", I feel honest sorrow for the UK's so-called Royal Family. Sure, they have money, fame, and power, three things that most people crave (though I may never understand the desire for fame or notoriety—sounds pretty awful to me). But they don't strike me as especially happy people. Watching the public drama of the Royal Family seems to be one shameful embarrassment after another. I would never want to subject my own family to that kind of public scrutiny.

"What infinite heart’s ease must kings neglect that private men enjoy?"

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15 hours ago, Traveler said:

Graft, as understood in American English, is a form of political corruption, being the unscrupulous use of a politician's authority for personal gain.  The reason I call it compensation is because many in politics believe that they earned their benefits by serving.  In the above definition the term "unscrupulous" is quite ambiguous.   Mostly unscrupulous is defined as without morals - rather than a clear definition relating to breaking the law.  With very few exceptions when a politician is faced directly and proven they have profited (unscrupulously with graft) - their response is that they did not break the law or if they did break the law - they claim it was not intentional.  But politician have become expert in taking advantages of ambiguities in the law.

If we follow my comments through this thread - you will note that I was responding to the notion that by paying a politician a exorbitant salary and benefits - that it minimizes what you are labeling as graft.  I completely disagree - in fact I am of the notion that exorbitant salary and benefits acts to attract those more interested in personal profits than serving the public.  This concept parallels D&D section 121 concerning authority and exercising unrighteous dominion.  If you like you can substitute unscrupulous for unrighteous dominion and vice versa.   My point - and I feel most strongly about this point - is that those that seek authority (including public service) ought to be willing to make a personal sacrifice to do so - otherwise they will by their nature seek graft and unscrupulous compensations for their so called services.

By the way; the ancient term for immoral unscrupulous compensations for both political and private sectors - is filthy lurker.  I realize that there is a fine line between my thinking and yours concerning this matter - but in general I believe that one of the great temptations and sins of worldliness (the natural man) is the seeking of riches.  I realize that for some this concept or principle of seeking riches is somewhat ambiguous - but in my mind the ambiguity is a means of mitigation to rationalizing succumbing to supposed meaningless temptation.

 

The Traveler

I have yet to meet a corrupt politician that will stop being corrupt because "they have enough money".  How many houses do you think a politician will own before he says "I have enough".  6 obviously isn't.

So no.  I'm not paying a politician from my hard-eared money more than what the work is worth.  I'm not giving him more of my hard-earned money that I need to feed my children so he will stop stealing.  That's a silly pursuit.  People who desire to steal will steal.  The way you stop people from stealing is not to give them money but to teach them not to steal.

Edited by anatess2
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