Under The Olive Tree

Integrity in Governance

Dear Professor Fish,

Your insight is intriguing.

If I am to march towards certain death with my brothers in arms, and spend the lives of my children and my children’s children - then it is my sincerest hope that the individual walking before me as the standard bearer of my nation has been given the banner because he will not flinch from the integrity of his task.

To follow him under any other circumstance would be to abandon reason, and to court disaster.

Our political system grants us the privilege of choosing those that we entrust with its power. To suggest that their personal integrity and political proficiency are mutually exclusive qualities is juvenile.

“I shall not be deprived … of a comfort in the worst event, if I retain a consciousness of having acted to the best of my judgment.” - GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Colonel Bassett, Jun. 19, 1775

Excusing the abandonment of integrity for gain or political “progress” subjugates the value of the result. Moving forward and solving problems and difficulties is more surely accomplished by those whose motives are pure.

If the highest offices of government are for sale we cannot expect to reap a growth of the public benefit based on making the choice to “not keep the faith”.

We get the princes that we deserve - for they come from among us. Let us hope that we can elect those that we truly need to walk the halls of the offices of power and influence.

B Bennett J