Wednesday, April 10, 2013

What, exactly, do we expect from our political leadership?

Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Proverbs 29:18

Considering himself a serious musician and in fact playing a cithara, that Nero may actually have fiddled while Rome burned is not possible, considering the violin or fiddle would not be invented for another 15 centuries give or take a hundred years. However if we interpret fiddling as spending time on something useless or misguided, well then we have something to debate. And, it appears today's politicians are still fiddling with, well, something.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/10/ex-rep-anthony-weiner-eyes-comeback-nyc-mayor/

My question is, how can this disgraced Twitter sharing Weiner have enough support to even consider running for office again? I suspect the truth lies somewhere between "I never heard the story" and "It depends on what your definition of 'is' is". It seems as if we are not paying attention to current events or are so caught up in pop culture that we find humor in the misbehavior of our politicians rather than the contempt with which they deserve. And while I do not believe that our long term memories are actually diminishing, I do wonder why we seem not to be taking advantage of them. After all, it's not as if we need to rely on our memory of early American history:

David Matthews, Mayor of New York City, plot to kidnap and poison then General George Washington in 1776
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Matthews_%28mayor%29


Daniel Sickles, New York State Assembly, shot and killed Phillip Barton Key (son of Francis Scott Key) in 1859
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000402

No - we need only go back to recent history - 2012:
LITTLETON, Colo. (AP)–Convicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich entered a federal prison in Colorado on Thursday to begin a 14-year sentence for corruption, including an attempt to sell or trade President Obama's vacated Senate seat.

Or, of course 2011, when Twitter exposed the former Representative from New York. Literally.

So, what, exactly, do we expect from our political leadership? Perfection? Of course not. But - Honesty? Integrity? Sound Judgement? Leadership? Adherence to the law? Considering that neither Matthews or Sickles (the first successful plea of temporary insanity) was convicted, our tolerance of political leaders bad behavior seems not to have changed. Without question, that behavior will not change until we decide, with our votes, informed votes, that we want something better. How about starting with the truth? I know it can be painful but isn't the first step in correcting a problem admitting that one exists? Maybe it would be easier to do this if we realized, really accepted the truth, that the collective voice we express today, serves, or detracts from, the generations to come. Our children. Their children.

“We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”  
 David Brower






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