While the law directs (and dictates behavior) in some cases – and serves as the bottom-end layer of duty – I also think public employees have ethical and moral obligations to the people they serve as well. In short, they need to serve people as they would like to be served. To speak only in legal terms is a way to bypass what really are the core topics for contemporary discussion about our government proceedings and public life (and what discourse might propel future laws). ... Laws are at the end of that public process, not the entirety of it. So if we start and stop there, we are missing most of the conversation.