Richard dot J dot Wagner at gmail dot com
ComplianceExpert.html, this hand crafted, human readable, HTML file was created November 4, 2018.
Last updated November 4, 2018, by Rick Wagner.
Copyright © 2018 by Rick Wagner, all rights reserved.
Q: I am pursuing due diligence regarding the accepted best practices having to do with theft. When I’m stealing parts from my neighbor’s car, how do I remain fully compliant and not go outside the bounds of the law?
A: Let me answer your question with a question: Have you been caught? If not, for all practical purposes you are in compliance.
Q: While dumping toxic substances into the reservoir, I suddenly wondered whether there might be some old laws on the books that I should comply with. Are there?
A: No, not to my immediate knowledge—or yours.
Q: I am interested in making millions of Americans addicted to the drugs that my company sells. This is O.K. from a compliance standpoint, right?
A: Absolutely! I would not be a registered expert in compliance if I told you otherwise. Indeed, I am surprised at the tone of uncertainty in your question. As a compliance issue, selling drugs and making people addicted to them is itself complying with a higher law, covered by the ancient Roman formula lex quodquod cupio (“the law [is] whatever I want”). One must look inside oneself and ask, “Is this what I want?” If the answer is “Yes, it is!,” then that’s the law, and the relevant compliance obligations have been met.
Q: I recently discovered that for many years I have unwittingly complied with laws against punching passersby in the face on the street. Who even knew that such laws existed? But I complied with them all the same! Now, because of a change in personal feelings, I would like not to comply with these laws anymore. Can I get some free punches on credit for all the punches that I didn’t throw in the past (such as at the guy last week in Times Square)?
A: Believe me, I know how frustrating it is to find that you have accidentally complied when noncompliance was an option that would have made you feel much better. Complying with not punching people in the face, in practice, is voluntary and self-enforcing. In other words, no one is a better judge of when to punch and when not to punch than you are. None of these rules are written in stone. If you feel like it, by all means, punch away. We compliance experts can work something out later.
Q: A chemical that I made at my factory and then intentionally released in a neighborhood of people I don’t like had the result of killing hundreds of my possible enemies and also many non-enemy bystanders. Now I am told that some tricky compliance issues need to be sorted out. How long will that take, and is it permissible to delete the e-mails that various police officials, attorneys, and survivors keep sending me?
A: One of the thorniest compliance areas that we have to deal with is murder. Again, it’s a matter of interpretation, but, when you cause another person’s death, your act may fall into the category of murder, or, to use a courtroom term, “homicide.” Do not let these weighted words intimidate you, however. They serve mainly as placeholders while we look more closely at readjusting the compliance structure to your particular situation. Say that you are being asked to comply with prison time or even some lethal-injection exposure as a result of your having “murdered” X or Y individual(s). That demand goes both ways, because you can also require the individuals imposing such penalties to comply with your executing them as well. Can they comply with chemicals entering the A.C. units of their apartments or houses and poisoning them in their sleep? “Comply with this! ” you shout. Compliance will always be a two-way street.
Q: It seems like I comply and comply and comply again, and it’s never enough. Will there be no end to this complying? I frequently commit acts that are then crime-shamed as being “against the law,” “just plain wrong,” or even “sociopathic.” Is that fair? Can you help me?
A: Help you? I am you, and I say “Go for it!” In the end, only we can judge. ♦
Ian Frazier is a staff writer at The New Yorker.
Here's a bit of educational part: I think this piece of humor actually gives us some insight into the minds of some public figures we may know of.
Richard dot J dot Wagner at gmail dot com
ComplianceExpert.html, this hand crafted, human readable, HTML file was created November 4, 2018.
Last updated November 4, 2018, by
Rick Wagner.
Copyright © 2018 by Rick Wagner, all rights reserved.