Originally Posted by
former_0302
Can people's personal lives make them professionally vulnerable? Why do we spend six figures on a background check before giving someone a TS/SCI clearance? Would you personally be comfortable with giving a clearance to a known philanderer? A known drug user? Etc?
I also know some people who value their oath of enlistment/office more highly than any other commitment they ever made, but I'm struggling to think of any objective method by which you could differentiate them from anyone else who just didn't want to live up to the commitments they've made. The oath of office/enlistment is a lifetime commitment, in the same way that marriage vows are (or, at least, that's how they're designed). A lack of willingness to live up to one doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of willingness to live up to the other, but it does indicate a lack of good judgment on the part of that individual, and a possibility of being put into a vulnerable position by enemy intelligence services. I can't be the only Archer fan here, but the 'honeypot' is not just Sterling Archer's favorite intelligence operation; it does actually happen.
That's only one example of the sort of things that people who aren't ethically sound can be drawn into. There are lots of examples of bribes, kickbacks, embezzlements, etc., involving military personnel. All of those are, IMO, moral issues.
I suppose that while I understand your distinction between personal and professional ethics, I don't consider them separable as you apparently do.
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