Multitudes of Americans believe what's convenient for them. These people are not capable of believing in something that gets in the way of day to day life - for instance: Large-And-In-Charge Marge believes that SHE is the center of the universe, believes she's charming because of it, and she can't understand why people don't just capitulate to her. This is someone we all know (in some form or another) who can't believe something that gets in the way of her day to day life.

How often do you see the average American labor over a moral issue?

How often does the average PRFer agonize over a moral issue?

Most Americans don't actually believe anything.

I think ethics are very important in considering what job you take. Like Justin said earlier, you spend most of you waking hours at work, so why not spend those hours doing something you believe is beneficial to society/life/whatever?

I find myself being hypocritical by working at my current job, and it really makes me feel like shit at times (I work for a corporate law firm, not as a lawyer though, that defends pharmaceutical companies and other big business entities, things I feel are really fucking everything up. Once, that I know of, we mounted a successful defense against a whistleblower, the type of person I normally want to win.). But, I need to pay my bills with something until I can get a job that doesn't make me a hypocrite.

Personally though, I'd advise against working for anyone that does surveillance of any sort, I think that's something else that's seriously fucking everything up and really just an ethically ambiguous realm to get into. However, that's my view and may not be yours. I wouldn't condemn you for doing that kind of work. You seem to be a pretty good guy and are concerned about the ethics of the situation, so I'd prefer having someone like you do this kind of work than some fascist nutbag.

I'd definitely stay away from the DEA though.

kerble wrote:

Josef K wrote:

ubercat wrote:If you're an ethical person, you bring it with you to work. Ethics don't start and stop when you cross a threshold.

Perhaps you really aren't an ethical person.

I find it incredibly difficult to forget my ethics, and even more difficult to compromise my morals for fucking money.

How far do you take your ethics? Would you consider it unethical to allow your taxes to be used for the purchase of armaments?

come on, now. that's not even in the same ballpark. what the gov't does with my tax money is really not up to me. It's my responsibility to pay the pittance they get so that I don't have to deal with the audit. although I don't make enough where they'd wanna come after me, anyway.

I've yet to have a job I couldn't get behind ethically. It's non-negotiable as far as I'm concerned. I don't think this applies to everyone's case, of course (like the nike story (btw-could your friend get his 3 year old a job at nike? it'd up the income! (I kid))) I feel fortunate that I haven't had a job that made me question my own ethics. not everyone has that luxury, though.

I don't think property ownership or settling down is the answer. it's barely an answer. it doesn't solve anything, it just gives you a new set of circumstances. I just recently bought my first piece of land (in India, no less! (wtf)) with my brother and my cousin, but it has yet to change my day to day. I guess it's because it's so far removed from me. I digress.

I still try to live like an artist an an honest person as much as I can. I do so cheaply and frugally and am much happier for it. I don't think that investing in an unknown (like property or marriage) will change the way I want to actually enjoy living. I hope that when I do go that route it just makes life different in a positive way and not a negative one.



gluck.

That's why I asked a question. But surely it's all about accountability? The truly ethical would drop out and live a lifestyle completely detached from the reaches of the normal society and the hypocrisy and compromise that comes with it.

Lets face it, regardless if you agree with it or not it's your cash that was is being used to fund military operations in Iraq.

I hope I'm not veering off topic or anything here...

but, I know in my job I'm actually granted a good deal of freedom. Given that, I think some freedom could be abused.

Choosing whether or not to work, for instance- I may just be screwing myself through laziness or, given the physical nature of my work, may be giving my body much needed rest. Either way, that decision is one that affects me and not necessarily the public or the community of people who do the same thing I do.

Lashing out at customers- I could yell at someone to get the fuck off my bike and never hear a thing about it. In fact, the guy I lease from somewhat encourages it if someone's acting like an asshole. However, I think it's important to try to establish good will in as many situations as I can. That entails having thick skin and sucking a few things up. If I tell someone to fuck off, get the fuck out of my cab you suburban fuckwit, it could reflect poorly on the other pedicabbers.

Yeah, these days I pretty much believe that what goes around comes around, and codify my behavior according to that.

You, however, appear to be dealing with people in groups and indirectly. It's different, but I still think it applies.

kerble wrote:

Josef K wrote:Why is working for the DEA such a no no?

no one likes a snitch.

Ok, but the DEA is hardly going to target artists who smoke a little pot are they? Don't you think that their operations have some value especially in curtailing the activities of the criminal drug organisations?

The main question and subsequent answers show that we all have different ethical standards.

It's kind of funny that some of you guys see it as unethical working for the police. That sort of turns the common concept of ethics on its head.

I'm not a police officer nor do I work for them, BTW.

Josef K wrote:It's kind of funny that some of you guys see it as unethical working for the police. That sort of turns the common concept of ethics on its head.

How so?

gmilner wrote:

Josef K wrote:It's kind of funny that some of you guys see it as unethical working for the police. That sort of turns the common concept of ethics on its head.

How so?

I think the roots of law enforcement come from the idea of jurisprudence, which is a branch of ethics.

The MayorofRockNRoll wrote:

gmilner wrote:

Josef K wrote:It's kind of funny that some of you guys see it as unethical working for the police. That sort of turns the common concept of ethics on its head.

How so?

I think the roots of law enforcement come from the idea of jurisprudence, which is a branch of ethics.

OK, but I still don't see why not wanting to work for the police conflicts with wanting to live an ethical life, which is how I read "turns the common concept of ethics on its head."

As for the DEA...I think the war on (certain classes of people who use certain) drugs has had very little positive impact on society, and has brought misery to thousands of people who don't deserve it. For an interesting take on the DEA I recommend Narco News.

That said, I really don't have an opinion on the specific question that launched this thread. I think we're increasingly living in a surveillance state, and I don't like it, but I wouldn't presume to think that everybody should have the same belief, to the extent that they turn down a job when they really need it.

By the way, I stole that twist on the "war on drugs" from the always excellent Lawyers, Guns and Money.

Josef K wrote:Ok, but the DEA is hardly going to target artists who smoke a little pot are they? Don't you think that their operations have some value especially in curtailing the activities of the criminal drug organisations?

But, those criminal organizations would not exist, at least as drug trafficking organizations, if the government had not engaged in the unethical practice of making drugs illegal and treating users like criminals.

Rick Reuben wrote:

Josef K wrote:Ok, but the DEA is hardly going to target artists who smoke a little pot are they? Don't you think that their operations have some value especially in curtailing the activities of the criminal drug organisations?

No. The DEA protects the exclusive license to traffic drugs into the US and partner nations that was granted to the CIA's designates, in order for the Agency to fund their operations off-budget. Secondarily, the DEA helps make sure that all income from drug smuggling is funneled through the proper banks, which reap huge profits from blending the lucrative drug economy into the 'clean' pool of capital. The DEA chases renegades, not those who play by the rules.

It's actually a whole lot more complicated than that. Some top drug trafficking organizations are given immunity, and often aided and abetted by the CIA.

The CIA is different from other government agencies in that CIA is an espionage organization. To protect the secrecy of its actions and resources, it does not report details of its budget to Congress. In the pursuit of critical sensitive information, many of its operations include "extralegal" activities. This means that they look for ways to get the information, regardless of the law. They're always developing clever ways to get around the law, or to break it outright without getting caught.

Spy agencies are concerned primarily with the collection and dissemination of privileged political information, and powerful international crime organizations always have high-level political connections, so the CIA often makes contacts with organized crime. Many dissident political groups of interest to the US use criminal trades to fund their operations, because large sums of untraceable cash can be procured through the international drug trade. Since these organizations are already operating outside the law by taking up arms against their country's government, so dealing shit on the side is no big deal to them.

These connections between crime and espionage are pretty universal. Spy agencies all over the world cultivate relationships with criminals or whomever can provide them with the information they seek. In return, they offer connections, funding, weapons, even some degree of legal immunity. In many historical cases, the CIA and NSA have worked closely in support of small anti-communist political organizations in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan and in Central and South America. These are organizations which obtained much of their funding through the large-scale production and trafficking of illicit drugs. The US government places such a high priority on these "national security" operations, that the resulting flow of dangerous illicit drugs into the USA presents a serious conflict of interests between the actions of CIA and DEA. For example, I once read that in the 1970s, there was a small village in the Chiang Mai province of Thailand which was home to several poppy farms and illicit morphine factories that were responsible for up to 20% of all the street heroin on the East Coast of the US. In this small town, the US DEA had a ramshackle office with a 3 or 4 agents, a few desks and a fax machine, but the CIA and NSA had hundreds of operatives in the fields outside the town, arming and training the drug dealers and using American CIA helicopters to airlift the opium poppies from the fields into town where it was processed into morphine.

Now contrast that with the procedures of investigative agencies like the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, etc. Those guys are cops, "door kickers", Law-and-Order types. They follow very strict laws when performing their investigations, then they sweep in with extreme force to make the arrest without harming anybody. They meticulously document all their evidence just like cops do, and then they turn the information over to the Federal prosecutors to make the case.

Two very different animals, the cops and the spooks. That's why there is such a long history of poor communication, interference and animosity among those agencies.

If you're interested in a fascinating book about the history and operation of US intelligence agencies, check out :
Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence

and these two excellent books by James Bamford:
The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization

Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency.

If you want a good read about the conflict of interests between the DEA and the CIA, check out:
The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade by Alfred W. McCoy.