It is very easy for a staff member and even an Ethics Officer to completely misunderstand Ethics and its functions. In a society run by SPs and controlled by incompetent police the citizen almost engramically identifies any justice action or symbol with oppression.

Yet in the absence of true Ethics no one can live with others and stats go down inevitably. So a justice function must exist to protect producers and decent people.

To give you an example, when a little boy this life, the neighborhood a block around and the road from home to school were unusable. A bully about five years older than I named Leon Brown exerted a very bad influence over other children. With extortion by violence and blackmail and with corruption he made the area very dangerous. The road to school was blocked by the 5 O’Connell kids, ranging from 7 to 15 who stopped and beat up any smaller child. One couldn’t go to school safely and was hounded by the truant officer, a hulking brute complete with star, if one didn’t go to school.

When I was about six I got very tired of a bloody nose and spankings because my clothes were torn and avidly learned “lumberjack fighting” a crude form of judo from my grandfather.

With this “superior tech” under my belt I searched out and found alone the youngest O’Connell kid, a year older than I, and pulverized him. Then I found alone and took on the next in size and pulverized him. After that the O’Connell kids, all 5, fled each time I showed up and the road to school was open and I convoyed other little kids so it was safe.

Then one day I got up on a 9 foot high board fence and waited until the 12 year old bully passed by and leaped off on him boots and all and after the dust settled that neighborhood was safe for every kid in it.

So I learned about justice. Kids would come from blocks away to get help in their neighborhood. Finally for a mile around it was a safe environment for kids.

From this I learned two lessons:

1. Strength is nothing without skill and tech and reversely, without skill and tech the strength of brutes is a matter of contempt.

2. Strength has two sides, one for good and one for evil. It is the intention that makes the difference.

On further living I found that only those who sought only peace were ever butchered. The thousands of years of Jewish passivity earned them nothing but slaughter.

So things do not run right because one is holy or good. Things run right because one makes them run right.

Justice is a necessary action to any successful society. Without it the brute attacks the weak, the decent and the productive.

There are people who suppress. They are few. They often rise up to being in charge and then all things decay. They are essentially psychopathic personalities. Such want position in order to kill. Such as Ghenghiz Khan, Hitler, psychiatrists, psychopathic criminals, want power only to destroy. Covertly or overtly they pay only with death. They arrived where they arrived, in charge of things, because nobody when they were on their way up said “No”. They are monuments to the cowards, the reasonable people who didn’t put period to them while they were still only small bullies and still vulnerable.

Ethics has to get there before tech can occur. So when it doesn’t exist or goes out then tech doesn’t occur and suppression sets in and death follows.

So if someone doesn’t hold the line, all become victims of oppression.

The Ethics Section is in Department 3. This department is called Inspection and Reports.

In small orgs there is only one person in that department.

Primarily his duties consist of Inspecting and Reporting to his divisional head and the Executive Council.

That is the first section’s function.

WHEN inspection reveals outness and reports (such as graphs or direct info to the EC) do not result in correction THEN it is a matter for the second section.

The second section of Department 3 is Ethics.

Now it is an Ethics matter. If correctly reported outnesses that threaten the org are NOT corrected then one assumes that suppression exists.

Because he has files of damage reports and chits and because he can see and investigate, the Ethics Officer locates WHO is causing outnesses and suppressing the org. By condition assignments, publication and Comm Evs he gets in Ethics.

It occasionally happens that it is someone high up in the org. It sometimes happens his seniors or the EC scold him for daring to report on things or to them. Then he knows the suppression is high up and he is delinquent in duty if he does not report it to the next highest org and if no action there right on up to the Sea Org. Anyone removing him for daring to report the factual results of his inspections can be severely handled by upper organizations. The Ethics Officer can only be in trouble if he fails to do his job and keep in Ethics.

Hitting people with conditions is such a small part of Ethics that it is almost an abandonment of post. Letting people be hit with wrong conditions is a Comm Ev offense.

Letting an SP collapse stats or an org is a shooting offense.

An Ethics Officer uses Ethics to protect Ethics upstats and keep the stats up and to smoke out crimes that push people and stats down. It is a simple function.

The basic duties of Dept 3 are what it says. Inspection and Reports. These alone usually work. When they don’t and stats fall or people fall off the org board, one goes into Ethics actions.

You don’t let incompetent and suppressive people on staff in the first place and you crowd Ethics in on them if they’re found to be there.

You DON’T confuse an executive’s effort to get the stats up with suppression.

The E/O is making the environment safe so that production can occur and service can be given. He is making it unsafe for those who by neglect or continual errors or suppression push stats down and get good staff members to leave.

If none of this is well understood and yet someone is making it impossible to work, find a 9 foot high board fence…

The E/O must know his Ethics policy. He must understand why he is there.

And the rest of the people in the org should understand it too.