This is the continuation of a story begun on our
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Which
brings us to those other government agencies that we once
thought housed men of integrity: the FBI, CIA and NSA.
Imagine, the head of the FBI, James Comey, leaking
confidential information to the press, lying under oath to
Congress, weaponizing confidential information, rigging
investigations into corruption, misusing government
information for political purposes, enabling money
laundering, enabling racketeering by Hilary Clinton, and on,
and on and on.
James Comey, what a piece of work that self centered
reprobate turned out to be. A man only too ready to
substitute his value system for society’s. A man who touts
his integrity but seems to hold none. A man only too ready
to obfuscate the truth, while placing into positions of
authority within the FBI still others whose lack of values
are only too clear to see, people like Andrew McCabe and
Peter Strzok.
Imagine an FBI with leaders willing to collude with others to
frame those whose way of thinking and ideology conflicts
with theirs, who readily and surreptitiously obstruct
investigations and alter results in order to help their
friends avoid prosecution, who use their power and rank to
furtively alter the course of
our government… all for the sake of political ideology? Still
think it would have been a good idea to have joined the FBI
when you left the Army? Probably not.
There are somewhere near 40,000 people in the FBI today.
Clearly many of them are honest people who hold and practice
genuine integrity. Likely too, many of the men in the FBI are former
military Officers, who more likely than not would be prone
to holding ethical standards
of the kind we would approve of. Unfortunately, while this
may all be true, it appears that
regardless of how many people a powerful agency like the FBI
has that are honest, all it takes are a few ideologs at the
top to alter our country's destiny. These power brokers know
only too well that if they hold enough authority, wield
enough power, use the tricks of their trade to avoid
oversight, and set their integrity aside in favor of a
broken ideology, they can alter the course of America. James Comey, Lois Lerner, John Koskinen, the list goes on. It's no
wonder Americans are more afraid of corruption within our
government than of terrorism.
Need another example... in one of those agencies we former
Army Officers thought were full of honorable people? How
about the former Director of National Intelligence
and Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, James
Robert Clapper Jr. A retired Lieutenant General in the Air
Force, this man too is a reprehensible individual when it comes to ethics.
Only too keen to lie under oath to Congress and the American
people as to the extent of the surveillance being performed
on us citizens, he doubled down on his “I know better than
you what’s right for this country” attitude when, after
leaving his job, he mounted and still pursues a one man
political disinformation campaign aimed at undermining
President Trump’s credibility. Not content to retire and go
away, he's ubiquitously running around making appearances on
the liberal talk show circuit, spouting opinions about how our
government should run, and who the public should trust.
One has to wonder, where do these people get their gall and
their guile?
Whether these are Hilary Clinton supporters or Trump haters,
it matters not. What they all have in common is a lack of
personal integrity… and the fact that far too many of them are
ex-military Officers makes it worse. One might excuse Hilary
Clinton for using her office and its influence to practice
racketeering and money laundering… after all, she’s just a
politician, and everyone knows that politicians are absent
integrity. But the FBI? The CIA? The NSA? Is there one of
these agencies that you would want to work for today?
- - -
If one reads the press commentary on this topic… the topic
of having and following a value system of one’s own, of
displaying integrity, morals and ethics worthy of the words,
one will see that the American public began to notice a slip
in America’s moral compass taking place about 10 years ago.
It started with the “me too” generation, and has been
getting worse since then.
We won’t blame the me too generation for what we have today,
but we will blame their parents, school teachers, scout
leaders, parish priests… and all the rest, including the cop
on the street… and for a few of you out there YOU, and even
ME… we too should be blamed for what has happened to
integrity. Our having collectively abdicated our
responsibility not just to the youth we interface with each
day, but the American society we once valued so much we were
willing to fight for, is the cause of this trouble. Put
simply: we have failed to pass on to the next generation a
veneration for the lessons we learned, in our own youth,
lessons about value systems.
Let's go back to our starting point, if you will:
We failed in Phase One… mostly by not giving our children a
full and complete education regarding what values are all
about. We did this during those precious first 18 years when
the youth we brought to the world were under our wing.
We failed in Phase Two, by not showing them the direct and
consequential ties that bind living a life of integrity with
happiness and success.
And now we are failing in Phase Three, by letting them
select for themselves a life based on ideology, rather than
integrity. That is, by letting them measure their own worth
based on ideology, rather than values.
While you are still alive Candidate, take the time now to
latch on to one of those grand kids floating around in your
extended family… the one you see out there wandering around
with seemingly no purpose in life… you know which one he is…
and help him begin to learn of integrity.
Make this your New Year’s resolution. Help a child in your
life make sense of life by teaching him about integrity.
Turn this challenge into your own personal Phase Four, and
get it done before you depart this earth.
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