LEGALITY AND ETHICS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (4/26/06)

A federal judge once said, “If politicians say their behavior is ‘perfectly legal,’ you know it’s immoral.” Rick Krug, Flagstaff’s perennial politico, ratchets up the rhetoric, saying that his recent furtive telephone campaign against Proposition 404 was “absolutely legal.” How about “absolutely immoral?”

It is hard to know what’s with Republican politicians. They just can’t seem to keep themselves clean. As with Brother Krug they are either skirting the edges of immorality, or as with Tom DeLay they are in the thick of corruption. In Yavapai County they like to tip the balances of justice in favor of the wealthy and influential, particularly the Republican wealthy and influential. In Phoenix Representative Rick Murphy (Republican-Glendale) wants to kill the clean elections law which means in effect that he advocates corrupt elections. By the way, he’s currently under investigation by the Clean Elections Commission.

The oil company executives in the White House, George Bush and Dick Cheney, with their oil policy of runaway prices at the pump and runaway profits for the oil syndicates suggest a conservation policy of “every little bit helps.”

In Flagstaff the Chamber of Commerce and the Northern Arizona Building Association agree with Brother Krug that the City Council should not have a hand in affordable housing. Small wonder. They’re the ones who profit from unaffordable housing. Remember that the NABA is the group that leaves all that hazardous junk and rubble in a yard after it builds a house. By defeating Proposition 404 they want to kill affordable housing.