>America has a culture. Culture protects us, it's like the immune system which fights off invading virusus.<
An interesting way to look at it. I agree with it. The nature of our culture encourages me to, in some way, support you. I was in a store parking lot recently with my car opened. I had dropped something in it and was looking around for it. As I was bending over I heard something behind me and then quickly felt it brush me. I turned to find a woman with her little daughter, whose nose was bleeding. The woman had seen a pack of tissues in my car and without asking had taken them to help her daughter. I was honored. This woman knew I would have done anything to help her little girl, and she did not waste time with foolish courtesies. Increasingly, however, I will feel forced to stay on guard, denying anyone to assume anything about me. We will all suffer as a result.
>It's the area in which people exercise their individual freedom. Manners, ethics and principles are at it's core. This is where we choose to be kind to one-another, to obey the basic laws of society. Trust is fundamental to this ideal. People who are not fundamentally trustworthy are carrying aids to our culture. They are underminding the culture which is the very fabric of the immune system.<
Very good. Yes. AIDS. A very good way to look at it. Distrust is a virus that threatens to destroy the immune system of our society.
>Leadership must be built on a foundation of trust. And this can only come from trustworthy people. This is what strengthens our country in times of crisis. No matter what problems we are faced with, a strong culture, centered on trust can overcome any problem. Principles are at this center.<
Yes. Society is like a family of sorts. We will disagree over issues, but fundamentally we are the same. When one of us is threatened or harmed, we should all care. This Lewinsky matter has decreased my trust that we do care. Were I to have a daughter, I would want our society to have built into it an expectation of all men to show her respect. I would want it to have built into it an expectation that any man old enough to be her brother, should treat her with a semblance of brotherliness and any man old enough to be her father should take it upon himself to treat her with a semblance of fatherliness. Here, even should she err, the society generally would help influence her toward the values that society cherishes. It seems we are a society of differing fundamental values. I personally think it reprehensible that a man should soil himself by taking another man's wife, in the process wrecking his own family by cheating on it. My neighbors on the other hand may think this not very much of a problem, since it happens so frequently. So I distrust my neighbor, I distrust his children.
>We don't need a person who is hollow here. A leader who lies infects the entire immune system.<
Agreed.
>Values and principles come from a deep place in the human soul. They combine the religios elements of the far east, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, as well as the non religios belief's of Wicca's and atheists.<
Yes. I happen to have religious beliefs that conflict with some of these faiths mentioned above. But fundamentally their moral systems are all compatible. My greatest friend in all the world (save my wife against which all others pale in significance) is an atheist. He and I are brothers in that our fundamental moral systems are very much compatible. He is incensed with Clinton and thinks he should be thrown from office (I would be happy merely with impeachment). I have Muslim and Jewish friends who detest adultery and the other ills that are fundamentally in err. I don't think I know any witches, but I hear they are not the wart nosed, spell chanting things many make them out to be.
>Trust, honesty, Integrity, courage, decency, and the principle of fairness are part of the Natural laws all human being live with. When they are broken, a bond has been severed.<
Precisely. This is why I have contempt for Americans. The time may come when that mother I told of will simply not trust me enough to help herself to my resources. I want her to trust me. Should she see something in my car that would lessen her duress, I want her to trust that I want to help her. In the future, she will not, and her children will suffer.
>All successful civilizations operate from a base of cultural principles. Sociologist Emile Dirkime once said " where mora's are sufficient laws are unnecessary, where mora's are insufficient laws are unenforceable".<
Yes. I have often said we are legislating ourselves into oppression. A moral society follows the spirit of a law and not merely its letter. We no longer believe in the spirt of anything, and so we must try and capture the spirit of a law by letter. The problem is, the law becomes so complex it is unenforceable. We saw this with Clinton, when the attorney's tried to define "sexual relations". The term was so broad, the judge limited it, and Clinton became free to lie. He cheated us, and I no longer trust him.
>Trust enables people to communicate and solve problems, Integrity is one of our cultural morals. Trust and honesty are rooted to our principles. Principles first start at the personal level, leadership which lies, or is hypocritical cannot have trust. You can't have trust from people who are not trustworthy.<
Yup.
>When values are focused on principles people are in alignment and working together. Change is happening faster than ever, but when people are centered on values and principles, they can deal with any change which comes along. I can't remember a time when the principles embodied in our leader were so out of alignment with the people's values.<
Yes. I would fight to the death for the rights of Jews, Muslims, Witches, Atheists, Blacks, Whites whomever, should I find us all embracing the fundamental morals that I see in nature. I cannot say that I will have the ability to do that today.
>How can we ever trust this President again? How can we believe he is sending our men and woman into battle for the right reasons? How can we know he believes in a policy or program for the right reasons? How can we know anything! Trust is gone, and trustworthiness with it.<
I think we cannot trust him.
>It's not enough in a leader to have competence, we must have character along with it. That is why "Character matters". I believe America will not so easily dismiss this attribute in the future when deciding who will be President.<
I hope you are right, but I do not think you are. |
