• PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The quotes in the first paragraph of your comment that you were passing off as mildly unpleasant but not corruption. They definitely are corruption.

    • SmoothOperator@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Ah, of course, thanks.

      But are they? If the farmers band together to form a political party which gets voted into parliament doesn’t seem like definite corruption to me. If the farmers had judges and officials in their pockets that would be corruption.

      If the majority of MPs have educated themselves within law, economics and social science to pursue a career of representing their communities, and they are then elected due in part to their experience ane expertise on state and governance matters, that’s not definite corruption to me. It’s not clear to me that someone like that cannot earnestly represent their electorate.

      If someone is looking to make a hire, and they have many qualified candidates, them choosing to hire someone recommend by their peers in the field doesn’t seem like definite corruption. If they were to hire their family members or friends based despite lower qualifications, that would be nepotism.

      • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The problem is all those ifs, and they’re giant ifs. Always assuming the best case scenario is the best possible way to get completely fucked over. Obviously those strawman statements are not proof alone of corruption, but to entirely ignore them as potential warning signs is beyond foolish. And to say they don’t describe corruption is demonstrably false.

        • SmoothOperator@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Always assuming the best case scenario is the best possible way to get completely fucked over.

          I agree, but here we are talking about reality, not assumptions. In this particular context, the majority of cases are as I describe. It’s completely justified to keep these things under intense scrutiny (Denmark is relatively transparent and has a functioning critical press across interests and political spectra), but if you assume the worst you start seeing corruption where there might be none.

          And to say they don’t describe corruption is demonstrably false.

          I’m not sure I see that, but I could well be wrong. Would you care to demonstrate?

          • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Oh yeah, no problem! Sorry I don’t have a webcam or anything, so it’ll have to be a textual demonstration.

            Web searches the phrase “forms of political corruption”

            Clicks most relevant link, probably Wikipedia

            Reads the webpage, processes the words thereon

            Notices how people in politics committing fraud, graft, influence peddling, bribery & kickbacks, regulatory & state capture, nepotism, patronage, and cronyism (see, I knew more applied) would very reasonably cause their constituents to have complaints like “private minority interests have major political parties in their pockets” and “lots of our politicians have been in their positions of power for an unreasonable amount of time” and “you can’t get a good job or government contract or research grant or get a pothole filled unless you ‘know somebody’”

            Demonstration complete, now it’s your turn! Let me know if you need to “see” any of that again, I can always s l o w i t d o w n for ya ;)

            • SmoothOperator@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Notices how [corrupt] people […] would very reasonably cause their constituents to have complaints like […]

              Thanks. Sounds like you’re saying the issues I mentioned could be signs of corruption, but are not corruption in themselves? Which is true for sure, but they don’t necessarily imply corruption.

              And in this particular case, they get scrutinized and very little actual corruption is found.

              • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                Not signs of, examples of. Like you say, not every case of these issues is corruption, but plenty (worldwide) are. And yeah, I’m not arguing about the actual statistics in Denmark, I’ve no idea and you’ve presented no actual data. Which is fine, I probably wouldn’t read it anyway, my Danish is more than rusty. You’re welcome.