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The Gaffer's Philosophy:
Part 76: Law, Ethics, and Integrity:
November 10, 2003:
In essay number 38, I outlined what I consider to be the four major issues which must be addressed if we are to have any hope of recovering our civilization. Briefly these were, child welfare, restoring the rule of law, saving our environment, and democratizing the world to end terrorism. To be sure, there are many other issues but these four are pivotal. If we don't solve these, none of the others will matter.
I cannot say I am completely finished with child welfare, but I have said enough that I can now turn to the next issue. I first stated that as restoring the rule of law in America. Now I see that restoring the rule of law is only part of the issue. Our law is, as it should be, very closely tied to our ethics and our integrity. As a result, we cannot take it in isolation. We must look at our ethics and our integrity. Perhaps the problem would be better stated as, we must look at our growing lack of ethics and integrity.
Ethically, to belabor the obvious, our house is not in order. As a result our culture is not in order. We are in a very real state of anarchy. Thugs rule the streets. No one is safe. The people charged with enforcing the law are the ones most likely to violate it. There are no examples of good behavior in government, business, or especially our religious institutions. Expediency rules the day everywhere we look.
All of our government at the federal, state, and usually the local level, including our supreme court, behaves unethically. This behavior results from a gross lack of personal integrity on the parts of a great number of people. This is not just the government. It happens in all phases of our culture. Many people have become unethical as a result of their sacrifice of personal integrity to expediency. I will not cover all that I know of, but I will get to some specific examples later. You know of many of them yourself.
We can point fingers and say people behave badly because of the government or the government is unethical because that's what people want. The pot calling the kettle black is not gong to change anything. The fact is, we all behave unethically. And, it is all a result of a lack of personal integrity. Our ethic has become one of expediency. So long as we have that attitude, there is no way we can restore the rule of law. So long as we behave that way, few people will obey the law. Anarchy will continue to reign.
There is no sense in trying to restore law without seeing to the more basic problem. We must restore integrity at the highest levels. What we must do, regardless of cause and finger pointing, is change the government. Our government must be the leading example of ethical behavior before we can expect change anywhere else. Then we can restore our constitution, make the necessary constitutional changes, and begin to enforce law in America. I will get to the necessary constitutional changes later. We can only get to that point if our government sets the example of obeying the law.
As I indicate, to have any chance of having a lawful government, we must replace all of the hacks who are now in power or who have ever been in power. We must take this to the highest levels, including our supreme court. We must replace those with no personal integrity with superior people of high integrity. Once we do that I still believe given good examples and a reasonable choice, most people will behave well.
Here is what I pointed out in essay number 38.We must stop our political beasts from violating the law at their own convenience. Until we do that, we can have no moral force in the world. Everything else we do must come out of that. Of course, this means getting an honest government. That is something we have not had since George Washington and John Adams. With a few brief exceptions, it has been downhill from there on. We have finally reached the point where our government is no longer viable. The cost is enormous and the results are frivolous when not dangerous.
So, replacing our current government becomes a number one priority. Now how do we do that? It will not do to just vote the ins out and the outs in. We have been doing that for decades. We ought to notice by now that it does not matter which bunch of criminals are in power. Slow and sad as it is, we must begin at the local level and build our political power from that base.
I am not talking about the kind of demagogic buffoonery that Perot engaged in. I am thinking about a real organization of superior dominants built up from the local level. Part of our hope of surviving is contingent upon building strong local communities and taking back our government from the bottom up. Right now, our entire governmental structure can be likened to a battery of loose cannons going off in all directions. From a cost standpoint alone, it has become untenable.
It's a shame our leadership is so ignorant. If they were not, they might have read Roman history. There is a very clear parallel between the decline of Rome and the current American situation. No one seems to notice that. We have had ignorance in the White House for decades. They have been ignorant of history, ignorant of facts, and ignorant of law. On top of that, there is a stubborn refusal to seek the advice and knowledge of experienced people and of the intellectual community. There is a stupid dependency on political hacks for solutions to serious problems. The appointment of Ridge is a classic example of that. Our government, by its very behavior, is a leading advocate for ignorance in America.
As I said, it all stems from a sacrifice of integrity to expediency. Integrity is really just a matter of discipline. It is nothing more than the personal discipline of doing what we know is right. There is a monstrously dishonest pretense that we don't know what is right. We do know what is right and integrity is simply a matter of having the discipline to do it regardless of cost. This is what our leadership totally lacks, the discipline to do what they know is right instead of what is expedient.
There is nothing to do but replace these people. They must
be replaced before we can do anything else. We have garbage to
collect in Washington, garbage to collect in Lansing, and garbage
to collect in all of our other seats of government. We must begin
small at the local level and build as we go. I will get into the
details of this in a later essay.
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