This is a quote taken from the duxdog/phifer/nixon post regarding Phifers refusing to pay his trophy fees.

Did anyone notice Dale W seemed to admit that Nixon screwed up on a ele hunt this year, and offered Lama extra animals as some sort of compensation? Does any PH really have that sort of extra quota lying around? Was Nixon overshooting his quota and bribing the game scouts and Parks to look the other way? Dale W also posted a hunt report with Nixon some time ago. Maybe he knows more than he is saying?

I was surprised that the Duxdog post took this long before the allegations of bribery were thrown into the discussion.

Who gave USA the moral superiority how to conduct business worldwide? Especially when our congress and government lives on bribes and corruption. A great example is the current healthcare reform...look at all the senators getting sweetheart deals for voting for this poor legislation. Or John Stossel's recent show entitled "Crony Capitalism"
http://stossel.blogs.foxbusine...ma/?test=latestnews,

where he reports that big business brides government for unfair favoritism and protectionism.


Here is a personal story:

I was had gone bird hunting in Argentina and when we arrive,our guide was there to greet us at the gate and then he took us to customs to clear our shotguns. There was a line of other hunters about 20 deep and some have been waiting for 40 minutes, annoyed and anxious to get out of customs.

The guide greases the official 50 dollars right in front of everyone. Our shotguns were clear and we were out the door in about 3 minutes. I must have had an expression on my face because the guide said "what's the matter... you never seen a bribe before."

I replied, "Not in the open, in front of everyone."

The guide responded, " That's the problem with your country, we do everything above the table, you Americans, do it under the table."

We both laughed.


Here are my questions: Is USA a country of hypocrisy? And pussified? If you ever find yourself in a troubling situation in Africa on safari...would you consider a bribe?


dale

Well, years ago I used to take moral umbrage to paying bribes, and in principle, still do. however, having said that we give "birthday gifts" to all sorts of USVI government employees in order to expedite processing and payment of our pay requests and other matters. It is expected and if you don't you may expect a long delay in getting paid: is it right-of course not- but we do it.

At one time I worked for a large Energy & Oil rig construction company. We built power plants all over the world. Nearly every project budget had an actual line item that was for bribes.. It wasn't labeled as bribes but that what it was for - especially in Asia and the old soviet bloc countries....

It truly is the norm in the rest of the world......

its not at all uncommon, especially in larger cities, for contractors to grease building inspectors hands in order to get their work inspected

Ever paid curbside baggage check-in rather than standing in line when you go to the airport? Last time I looked at LAX it was 15 USD per bag. If you pay a little more you don't wait in line. At least at check-in in the USA we seem to consider it a payable service. One might conclude that the US is more advanced about paying for expedited services compared to those poor backward third world countries.

When an organized service helps you through arms declaration in South Africa you pay for it. Do you think they don't somehow pass some of that money onward?

"It truly is the norm in the rest of the world......[/QUOTE]"

To those paying the $50 bribe it may seem an insignificant price to pay for convenience, but for those of us living in places where the cancer of corruption festers and breeds it is another nail in the coffin.When will we realise that government officials are supposed to serve the public and they owe us rather than the other way around.It may be a bastardisation of the quote but didn't somebody say that you never achieved any victory by appeasing the enemy???

quote:

Originally posted by daleW:
Does any PH really have that sort of extra quota lying around?

Very possible, as quotas are allways out of balance with hunter demand ...

as bahati said, could very likely be that Nixon had some un-sold or un-spoken for quota left. Not exactly an unheard of occurance.

I am positive that there was unsold quota at that time of the year. 3 of the last 4 elephants hunted that year were unexpected. Only one was planned on & booked ahead of the hunt.

I would think bribery would be much more favorable to the constitution than African prison time! Luckily I can't speak from experience!

Brett

I have personally seen (ok,ok....prepared) budgets where there existed a line item titled...."ministry advisor fee". We bribe low level public officials before action for the same reason we tip a PH after a hunt...their respective salaries or daily rates do not cut the mustard for them. Strangely, I have also seen circumstances where upper level gov't officials could NOT be bribed....they seemed basically useless regardless of the amount of money on the table. That is, in my opinion, the very definition of a true third world shithole....where even a very good bribe won't get the job done.

This thread reminds me of a funy story about one of my Argentine buddies. He was in the US for some polo event. He was getting a traffic ticket. He went to the officer and asked him how much to "take care" of the ticket. As you can guess, the officer was not too thirilled. Luckily, my friend was ablt to explain that bribes were the norm back home.

I had some business in Russia a few years ago and needed to have some official documents notarized. Apparently a notary public in Russia is an important government official.
When I got to the notary's office the line stretched around the building. I started to despair, but my translator said for me not to worry and hurried inside. She came back out to the car and said the notary wanted a large cake with vanilla icing, a case of Baltika beer and a bouquet of fresh flowers and we could cut to the front of the line. So, we went on a shopping trip and I got my documents notarized quickly.

To answer your questions:

A: Even though there is hypocrisy in the US I do not believe were are a nation of hypocrites. Makes as much sense as saying there are anti-hunters in the country we are a nation of anti-hunters.

B. Pussified: read above

C. You seem to compare bribing an official in Argentina to expedite his job where everything is legal (assumed) to Nixon allegedly bribing game scouts and parks officials to do something illegal. Even the US law makes that distinction in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Would I bribe an official to get my legal guns through customs, Yes, would not like it though.

Would I bribe an official to allow me to shoot an illegal animal, never.