Look, the core issue here isn't about punishing politicians—it's about removing a clear conflict of interest from the decision-making process. When a public official can buy and sell individual stocks, they have both insider knowledge and the power to influence policy that directly affects those holdings. That's not a conspiracy theory; it's a structural flaw. We don't need to see them get caught to know the risk is unacceptable. In any other regulated field, we'd demand firewalls between decision-makers and personal financial gain. A ban on individual stock trading doesn't stop them from investing in broad index funds or mutual funds, so they can still build wealth without the temptation to act on non-public information. The evidence on conflicts of interest is overwhelming, and the burden should be on proving why we should tolerate this obvious vulnerability in our institutions. It's simple risk management.

If we want citizens to actually trust public policy, we have to

The other side keeps focusing on punishing bad actors after the fact, but that's backwards. Purging officials and enforcing stricter laws sounds tough, but it depends on catching intent, which is nearly impossible to prove. You'd have to show they used non-public information, and that's a huge burden. A ban on individual stock trading sidesteps all that because it removes the opportunity entirely. It