This is why it's relevant when a politician has had an affair; if he is unwilling to uphold the most solemn covenants he makes in his lifetime, to the people to whom is the closest, and upon whom the negative impact of his actions will hit the hardest, why do we have any idea that he will be willing to uphold his covenant to perform in the general interest or uphold the Constitution when his covenant is with an amorphous, anonymous mass of "The People"?
DHH told me to attempt the impossible if I want to achieve success. I see it as profoundly unimaginative and unambitious to restrict this notion to the fields of business and programming.
You've gotta have a go!
Besides, 'watching closely' is pretty trivial now. The government certainly seems pretty good at doing it to us.
You don't. We change the societal web of incentives such that the people who become legislators are capable of making the distinction between unethical lobbying and their role as representatives on their own.
The people we're getting right now sometimes seem cognitively unable to draw this distinction at all.
EDIT: And how do we do that, I hear you cry? We'll what we're doing right now is a good start. Capitalists, entrepreneurs and some might say downright greedy people having loud, public conversations questioning and debating the role of private business in government, and vice-versa. If this keeps happening, the meme that perhaps such unrestrained lobbying might be harmful will permeate mainstream culture, and when the politicians of the future are preparing their campaign platforms, personal ethical responsibility in their relationship to industry will be at the top of their minds, because they perceive them to be at the top of the minds of those who will be voting for them. Obviously it is too ambitious to expect politicians to act selflessly. Therefore we must make it in their interests to act ethically.
And run-on-sentences. Those help too.