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Is my government corrupted? Well, to which are you referring? The local school board or water commission? Municipal? County? State? National? Corrupted how? In the dictatorial use and abuse of political power? The private accumulation and use of public funds? Bribery? Censorship? How many different forms of corruption can there possibly be? And corrupt compared with what or with whom? Is there a perfect government at all in which no government official is immune to envy, greed, and the love of political approval and power? Does a politians's dedication to what he interprets as the public good mean he's not himself corrupt, or does it simpliy indicate that he's corrupted by the self-delusion that he knows what is good for the public than does the public itself?
The 10 listed countries certainly have more than their share of uncaring politicians who pursue personal interests. On the other hand, everyone I know who has ever done business in Nigeria has a litany of horror stories of the level of corruption there. Eva and Juan Peron were about as bad as it gets, yet the two remain popular among some in and out of Argentina. I've also heard from Westerners who were among to try to generate business behind the Iron Curtain prior to dissolution of the Soviet Union. A common negotiating tactic, I'm told, was for Western businessmen to be arrested by KGB and locked up at least overnight. Often such detention was immediately followed by deportation, requiring a long and difficult process for the businessman to be readmitted on a business visa, at which time he learns that the Soviet officials with whom he previously negotiated have been replaced and negotiations must start all over again.
On the other hand, I don't buy the arguments that all government is corrupt or disregard their own institutional rules, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. Such easy dismissals are usually made by smug cynics who have neither the experience nor the ability to think through such charges. Just because one disagrees with the person holding a certain political office doesn't make the person in office corrupt nor does it make the opponent free of his own self-interest.
Last edited by rufnek; 09-10-11 at 03:27 PM.