FOR TIME IMMEMORIAL, POLITICS HAS BEEN DIRTY; IT’S TIME TO CLEAN IT UP

SPECIAL POST

My fellow Americans, it is a tragedy that we have put ourselves into the position where no worthy man or woman wants to run for public office because, in order to do so, they must be willing to lay down their honorable upbringings and principles and to join the politics of the dirty. We, the citizens of the world, bear the responsibility for allowing politics to be dirty. We are to blame; it’s our fault.

The blame lies with us because we have tolerated it and we are complicit and partners in it because we have turned our backs away from it, rather than faced it head on and removed it from our system. Running for public office in this country should not only be a privilege, it should be an honor and there should be no more honorable a profession than to serve in public office.

We see it in the halls of Washington every day, but it also exists in our states, counties and local governments. We see it in Bell, California, where city officials were paying themselves outlandish salaries and benefits. We see it in Illinois where a governor conspired to obtain political and monetary favors in exchange for naming a President’s favored candidate to fill his unexpired term. We see it in Massachusetts, where a United States Senator who advocates high taxes moves his boat to another state where there are no taxes. We see it in the courts, where an openly gay judge agrees to hear a case regarding gay marriage. We even see it in the press, of all places, where journalists turn their backs on their duties to their fellow countrymen and write stories and news that curry favor with political insiders. Yes, it is tolerated and even expected.

I submit to you that any person at any level of public responsibility who does not hold himself or herself up to the highest standards of morals and ethics should be removed and disgraced.

My God, does it not anger you that there are people running for various offices in this country right now, after all we have been through, who have tarnished personal and political reputations? Doesn’t it anger you more that we are faced with the problem that their opponents are just as tarnished as they are?

Why? Why have we allowed ourselves to evolve into the level of complacency in this country that we can just pass it off as being “politics is dirty” and to buy into the proposition? Why?

Do we have the guts and the fortitude to stand up to the dirty politicians and say, loudly and clearly… “Enough is enough, get the hell out?”

Until we do, no decent worthwhile man or woman is going to want to run for office. They may have all created this mess, those dirty toileticians but, the day has arrived when we must clean it up.

Get out and vote.