Sunday, December 6, 2009
Who gets what, and who gets punished
When is nominating someone you know for a job reviewed by ethics people? Recently there has been some talk about Senator Max Baucus. He had nominated someone he was having a romantic relationship with for a spot as a US attorney. There have been other issues similar to this, other government officials that are helping people get jobs, as with President Sarkozy and his son. This however all leads to the ideas of nepotism and conflicts of interest. Nepotism is when someone hires or nominates mainly someone of their family or someone they are close to, for a job. This is bad because then the ideas arise of whether they treated the other people unfairly and gave their friend an advantage over the others. If this keeps happening then this single person can gain more power because the people they hired will in turn help them with their newly attained powers. To an extent I think this is bad, but if someone truly believes that that person is right for the job, then I believe that it should just be reviewed by other people and then let them say the final verdict.
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2 comments:
From a purely objective standpoint, I have to disapprove of nepotism. I feel that we would probably have a much smoother running nation if all leadership positions and job posts were filled by people who were reviewed and chosen by objective third parties. However, I don't think any one can be truly objective.
Now, from a more subjective standpoint I'd have to say that nepotism might even be a good thing. Assuming that nepotism is merely the NOMINATION of someone a person is close to and that the nomination will be reviewed by other well qualified people, nepotism could be a good way to find candidates for a job without having to weed through bunches of people. This is because the person nominating the other person supposedly knows that person very well and believes that he or she can do a good job. So, as long as there is always a final review by other people of the nominee, i think nepotism is a fine.
I agree with what Sabrina said in theory, but I am always wary when applying nepotism to politicians. I feel like the spoils system, pioneered primarily by Andrew Jackon, has been used throughout history to reward the friends of politicians rather than well-qualified people. Max Baucus in particular has not always been purely objective in his decisions. As chair of a senate committee crucial to the formation of a senate health-care bill, I have no doubts that Baucus's decisions were influenced by his ties to the insurance industry, which has given him over $2 million. If Baucus made concessions on the bill to save his campaign money, that leads me to believe he would make political appointee concessions to aid a relationship.
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