| ► Columbus Dispatch - 08/17/02 - Ethics course won't stop those who choose to do wrong |
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Columbus Dispatch Letter to Editor - Aug. 17, 2002
Ethics course won’t stop those who choose to do wrong
By David Palmer (The Watchdog)
I feel compelled to respond to the misconduct and shenanigans going on at the Ohio Turnpike Commission. The Dispatch reported that Commission member Gordon Proctor said the commission should provide ethics training to its employees.
It seems as though every time public employees are caught in the act of unethically or illegally porking out at the public trough, some anointed apologist claims additional ethics classes are required.
We are all presumed to have received extensive ethics and moral training from our Mom and Dad, our teachers and religious leaders prior to reaching puberty.
Probably when little Gino Zomparelli was nine years old, he was told that it was wrong to lift a candy bar from Kroger’s. Are we to believe that when Zomparelli became director of the Ohio Turnpike Commission, he required a remedial course in ethics 101?
Unquestionably, we would all scoff at the suggestion that intensive ethics classes would have convinced executives at Enron that it was wrong to engage in stock fraud.
One does not magically become ethical overnight.
Governmental enablers who continue to assert that additional ethics classes will magically transform an ethical dwarf into a moral giant are nothing more than elitist spin masters.
Ethics classes, all of which are paid for by the public, are a useless exercise when dealing with adults who feign ignorance when caught with their collective hands in the public cookie jar. If any adult employed by Sears were caught stealing from the store and defended his or her conduct in court by blaming Sears for failing to provide ethics classes, such a person rightfully would be laughed out of court.
Finally, ethics classes for state employees at public expense are yet another example of wasting public funds. When state employees are first exposed as ethical lepers, the first opinion should be immediate dismissal and prosecution, if warranted. Remedial ethics classes for adults is akin to requiring public employees to undergo potty-training courses prior to being employed.
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