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I do not understand your sense of ethics at all.

If the lawyer is in some way writing a will that benefits the friend more than the other wills the lawyer writes, or (worse) benefits the lawyer, that's unethical. If the lawyer is writing the will but just not charging, that doesn't seem ethically questionable.

If the doctor is stealing flu shots from the clinic that could have gone to people who couldn't pay for them except via insurance or another program, that is definitely unethical. If the doctor ... happens to have flu shots lying around? does this happen?? ... and has nothing else to do with them, healing people is part of the doctor's mission.

Letting people go after they have committed a misdemeanor is not part of a police officer's mission. It's rather the opposite of it. If a lawyer takes up a client's case, and argues weakly in court because the other side is a friend of the lawyer's, that is absolutely unethical. If a doctor prescribes a medication that the patient doesn't need because a family member works for the pharmaceutical company, that is absolutely unethical. And these things don't happen on a regular basis.

I'm sure that the doctor in your example would love to give flu shots to everyone, or the lawyer would love to make sure everyone has a will - they just don't have the time to write wills for everyone without pay. But the situation with the cop is the opposite: the cop spends less time not pulling someone over. The cop does not have a limited amount of tickets they can overlook; the cop actually has a limited amount of tickets they can write. If the cop wants to give everyone a pass on speeding tickets, that seems great. But they clearly don't - they are saying "I have one set of standards for my friends, and another for everyone else," which is unethical. The doctor and lawyer aren't saying that.

Barter is supposed to be taxed. Its tax evasion. A small matter, but so is not writing a ticket. After all, officers have discretion - the public safety is their concern, not making money for the city. I've been stopped a couple of times, only gotten a ticket once. Because I'm not a public menace, and that's clear once the officer talks to me. No special card involved.

Who's bartering? Your original example was of a gift. Gifts under $14,000 don't need to be reported. [1]

If bartering is involved, then yes, it ought to be reported as taxable, or it's unethical for the reasons you state.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

Huh, I've been stopped a few times, it's been clear I'm not a public menace, and I still get ticketed. Maybe it's because I'm not white?

Likely - I'm tall, white, middle-European looking and educated. I'm polite to the policeman too. All that gives me an edge, undeserved or not I guess.

Those examples (writing a will, giving flu shot) are an expense of the giver, and the giver alone. (In the flu shot example, assuming they're not stealing one from their employer.)

With "get out of jail free cards", the expense is borne by society: blue family members speeding without risk of punishment increases the danger to other people, and at no cost to the officer giving the perk. Equivalently, pretend the offender's fine is just paid out of some public coffer. They're taking money from the city.

If, say, the police officer's union wanted to pay supporters' fines out of their own coffers, I could see an argument that it's not immoral. At least then they'd be incentivized not to hand out so many…

Not paying taxes on the income you didn't make is borne by society (as I mentioned).

No, its all about the same deal. Ethically anyway.

Gifts under $14,000 aren't taxable.

Barter is. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

Further, the cop isn't gaining financially at all.

As I replied in another comment, where's the barter in your examples? I see gifts. If there is barter, yes, one must pay tax, or it's unethical.

Where did I say the cop was gaining financially? Why does that even matter?

Now you could say our whole system of taxation is unjust and thus skirting it is unethical. That's fine, but has nothing to do with get-out-of-jail-free cards, since, as you point out, the cop is not gaining financially.

The examples you gave are ultimately poor analogies because not only are the laws potentially broken different (taxation vs. speeding), but the officer is explicitly in a position of enforcing the law, making that scenario a conflict-of-interest.

A better analogy would be a government worker awarding a contract to a friend. Such an act is widely considered unethical, even if the friend charges the same and performs the same as another contract applicant. It's unethical, and a conflict of interest, because the worker is using their position of power for quid-pro-quo (a social benefit for the worker).

Of course, none of the above paragraph is true for a private corporation; it is beholden only to itself and can choose whatever chum it wants for contract work. Likewise, I could see an ethical argument in favor of a cop who pays from their own pocket the tickets of family members. Just not one who flouts his duty as a government officer for quid-pro-quo gains.

> But to do their job, officers have to start from a solid foundation. They have to know their families are safe and taken care of, like anybody else. That their community respects them.

Wrong. Police do their jobs out of a sense of duty. They don't do it because it's a popularity contest.

Respect is earned. For those officers that are genuine and honest, their community will see that.

The problem is that when you wear a uniform, you lose lots of your personal characteristics and people see you for the aggregation of everything that other officers do. When thousands of NYC police officers turn their back on the mayor+president during a speech for sticking up for civil rights of the entire country, police officers lose respect from me.

Police families are safer when they don't speed, or at least that's what our laws and our police tell us when we get pulled over. I'd prefer it if police families were kept in line just like those of us on the other side of the "thin blue line".

> It's ethically questionable, of course.

It's an abuse of prosecutorial discretion.

You may want to read up on ethics. "Giving a free flu shot" isn't an ethical dilemma. Giving your neighbor's kids an experimental vaccine without their parents knowledge or consent is.

> I've got way better, more important things to worry about than what's at heart, a personal matter for law enforcement officers.

I'm a tax-paying citizen. When small acts of police corruption are tolerated in my name, that's not insignificant. Small acts, unchecked, give police the feeling that they can get away with larger acts.

And this is coming from a guy with a cop in the family. His wife is already showing signs of questionable ethics. And she uses the same "They have to know their families are safe" argument.

Disagree. Barter is supposed to be taxed; doing 'professional courtesy' freebees is avoiding that. Ethically not much different. Heck, the cop doesn't even get the money.

And police do their job because they want to help people. Movie plots aside.

Police families that abuse the privilege, the officer will call the family's officer and mention this. You think the repercussions will be less than a fine? Think again.

I know, police are in the public eye for misdeeds/corruption by some. Some of that is because police are so much 'on display' all the time. We all see them at their duties. They're not sitting in an office. But ethics are ethics, and to pull their chain, but give the rest of us a free pass, is disingenuous.

> But so is writing a will for a friend, or giving free flu shots to the neighbor's kids.

How are those things ethically questionable?

Tax evasion. You-pat-my-back-I'll-pat-yours is ethically questionable.

Even if we grant that evasion of some $20 filing fee on the will (the attny fees are probably tax deductible [1]) or 75 cent [2] tax on the flu shot is of the same magnitude of offense as the skipped speeding ticket, note that the free shot or will isn't being given deliberately to avoid taxes. It's done to avoid paying the doctor or lawyer's fee. So, the exchange is considered as being between friends with no real governmental third party--a gift.

OTOH, the intent of the PBA card is aligned with the putative ethical wrong: you show the card deliberately to avoid paying a fine to the govt and to avoid the deterrent effect of the punishment.

[1]: http://info.legalzoom.com/legal-fees-preparing-tax-deductibl...

[2]: http://www.weeklystandard.com/house-to-consider-tax-on-new-f...

I get what you're saying, I think there is a human element that can never be factored out entirely. But to do it on such an industrial scale that you have to get a card printer involved is pretty brazen.

>But to do it on such an industrial scale that you have to get a card printer involved is pretty brazen.

Going to Kinko's or some similar place isn't exactly "industrial scale."