THE MORAL COMPASS OF THE NATION PART 1 of 2
THE MORAL COMPASS OF THE NATION PART 1 of 2
By Bill BarnsteadJanuary 24, 2007 NewsWithViews.com
Before my days as the Chairman of the Republican Party of Massachusetts (during the Nixon era); and even long before the nominating committee of the Men's Club of my church asked me to assume the role of president of the organization (during the Eisenhower years) I was consciously aware that I lived in a nation with a strong moral compass. I was proud to be an American. Every citizen of this great nation—native or naturalized—was, too. We proudly wore our patriotism like a badge of honor. We may have been Baptists, Congregationalists, Catholics or Pentecostals, and we our families may have come from Ireland, England, Poland, Italy, China—or Mexico or Russia, but first and foremost, we were Americans. Not hyphenated Americans, or "universal" Americans from one of the American continents. We were distinctly US Americans—and we were proud of that distinction.
What set us apart from the rest of the world was not just America's affluence. Affluence comes from investing sweat equity in nation-building. What set us apart from the rest of the world was our moral compass—our belief in a Supreme God, and the lifestyle associated with right living. The needle in the moral compass of America pointed reverently towards God and to pious consideration of our fellow man—regardless of his station in life. We gauged our fellow man not by his financial net worth, but rather, by his moral compass: his integrity and honesty, his trustworthiness and moral cleanliness, and finally, his bravery and loyalty.
This is the yardstick by which most of us measure our friends. But, for some unknown reason we don't apply that same yardstick to those we elect to public office. Does it not make sense to "hire" mayors, Assemblymen, Congressmen, Senators, federal judges, governors and Presidents who possess the same qualities we expect in our friends? Why are we content with politicians who lack integrity, and who sell us out for 30 pieces of silver whenever they accept legal bribes that, with tongue-in-cheek, are referred to by the mainstream media as campaign contributions? Million dollar campaign war chests are merely favors waiting to be repaid—at the expense of the taxpayer.
Integrity and honesty. When we think about moral compasses, we instinctively measure family and friends with the same yardstick we use to gauge ourselves. We instinctively expect those we entrust with our friendship to be trustworthy because we, who were instilled with the attributes of Christian values and morality from our youth, are trustworthy. Do we not have the right to expect those same "good citizen" qualities in our elected officials? Not only do we have a right to expect it, we have a patriotic obligation to demand it.
About ever two years or so we can usually, in complete candor, say something like: "We've just experienced the uncovering of several cases of misconduct on the part of our appointed and elected officials. As citizens and good Christians we should have risen as one in righteous wrath and threw them out of office. But, we didn't. What did we do? Our apathy took over, and we decided it was someone else's responsibility." In point of fact, addressing the congregation at my local church on one such occasion, that is pretty much what I did say. It's like dé-já-vue. Whenever you open a newspaper or turn on the TV, its the same story replayed over and over again—only with a different name, a different face and a different political party. The only thing that remains the same is the small cadre of lobbyists and/or industrialists, businessmen and bankers doling out the bribes.
Political cronyism. Lack of integrity. Graft. Bribery. Deceit. Lack of trustworthiness. And most of all, greed and the lust for power. These men (and women) have no moral compass because the nation itself no longer has a moral compass. Let me cite a couple of examples.
On July 30, 2005 Congressman William Jefferson [D-LA] met with Lori Mody at the trendy Ritz-Carlton in northern Virginia just across the Potomac from Washington, DC. At the conclusion of their meeting, they walked to Mody's car in the hotel parking lot. She popped the trunk and handed Jefferson a leather briefcase containing $100 thousand in $100 bills. The money was to be used to grease the palms of some Nigerian officials in a deal supposedly concocted by Mody. The money was marked. Mody was an undercover operative for the FBI. Video camcorders in the room recorded the deal and four strategically-placed camcorders in the parking lot recorded the transfer of the bribe. Four days later FBI agents raided Jefferson's Capitol Hill home and found $90 in marked bills, wrapped in aluminum foil and stuffed into plastic frozen-food containers, in his freezer.
What makes the Jefferson incident most interesting is not that one more corrupt politician accepted a bribe. What makes it newsworthy is that, after being caught—and videotaped taking a $100 thousand bribe—the voters of the 2nd Congressional District of Louisiana elected Jefferson to his 9th term in Congress. Not only does Jefferson not have a moral compass, nor apparently do the voters of the 2nd District. Even more appalling, because Jefferson had to stand in a special run-off election against State Rep. Karen Carter on Dec. 9, he was applauded by the the Democrats when he showed up at the 110th Congress was sworn in. Democrats as a whole, it appears, have no moral compass.
On May 18, 2006 the GOP-controlled Congress launched an investigation into reports that lobbyist Jack Abramoff had given Congressman Bob Ney [R-OH] $50 thousand to play with at one of the Indian casinos in exchange for favorable treatment for the Coushatta Indian casinos. On Aug. 7, 2006 Ney withdrew from the GOP House race. On Sept. 15, 2006 he pleaded guilty to charges of accepting a bribe. On Nov. 3, 2006, four days before the election, he resigned his congressional seat. Ney was sentenced to 30-month and the slim GOP majority in Ohio rejected what they viewed as the Republican's moral lapse.
Zachary Space, the Democratic candidate for Ney's seat beat Ohio State Senator Joy Padgett by a margin of 62% to 38%. Most Ohio Republicans in the 18th District stayed home. They couldn't vote for Space and wouldn't vote for Padgett. Where Democrats don't believe accepting a bribe is grounds for removal from office, the GOP leadership removed Ney from his leadership role in the House and forced him to drop out of the 2006 House race. That was the difference in the moral compasses of the two parties.
While on the surface it looked like the voters' rejection of Padgett was a rejection of the GOP's lack of moral character. However, locals had reason to believe that Padgett's moral compass was, itself, in question. Many of the protest GOP "non-votes" in the 18th Congressional District knew that Padgett and her husband got a business loan for $737 thousand through JP Morgan Chase Bank and renegotiated a 3-year $100 thousand loan and then, 14 months later, filed for bankruptcy on their business followed, 8 months later in their filing personal bankruptcy. In the interim, the Padgetts transferred ownership of family property to Joy Padgett's brothers to keep the property out of the bankruptcy. In addition, the Padgett's sold their client list to a North Canton, Ohio company for $129 thousand—and kept the proceeds out of bankruptcy. Padgett's moral compass was also broken.
The largest majority of the American people, and most certainly the mainstream media, believe the moral compass of the nation was broken on June 17, 1972 when covert operatives paid by the Committee to Reelect President Nixon broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. The reality is that the moral compass of the nation began to disintegrate with the assassination of John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963.
On the morning of the day that Kennedy was assassinated, the US Senate Rules Committee chaired by Senator B. Everett Jordan [D-NC] was investigating the Vice President of the United States. The investigation was taking place in a secret session brought about by Attorney General Robert Kennedy's investigation of Bobby Baker after Kennedy discovered firm ties between Baker and several Mafia bosses who were doing business with Johnson.
As they were listening to testimony from insurance executive Don B. Reynolds, the Senators were unaware that the nation had just been stunned by the loss of John F. Kennedy who had just been shot in Dallas, Texas. Because Jordon sealed the hearing, no one on the Senate Rules Committee was allowed to leave the room. Nor was anyone allowed to enter. There were no phones in the room, so no one knew that JFK had been killed.
Nor did they know that man they were investigating had just become the President of the United States. Reynolds told the committee that he personally saw Bobby Baker give Johnson a suitcase containing what he was told was $100 thousand. The kickback, he said, was for LBJ helping Baker with a lucrative deal in Fort Worth. Reynolds also revealed that in 1950 Johnson and Baker purported helped Intercontinental Hotels Corporation get some casino licenses in the Dominican Republic for Mafia bosses Meyer Lansky and Sam Giancana. When the casinos opened their doors in 1955, Johnson and Baker were invited as official guests of the syndicate. For part 2 click below.
Click here for part -----> 2,
© 2007 Bill Barnstead - All Rights Reserved
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Bill Barnstead is a Boston businessman and former Chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party. Bill has been a solid supporter of the GOP for over 45 years and has been a major contributor of the Republican party and Republican causes. He is currently disillusioned with the GOP and George W. Bush. The old warrior is now speaking out.
By Bill BarnsteadJanuary 24, 2007 NewsWithViews.com
Before my days as the Chairman of the Republican Party of Massachusetts (during the Nixon era); and even long before the nominating committee of the Men's Club of my church asked me to assume the role of president of the organization (during the Eisenhower years) I was consciously aware that I lived in a nation with a strong moral compass. I was proud to be an American. Every citizen of this great nation—native or naturalized—was, too. We proudly wore our patriotism like a badge of honor. We may have been Baptists, Congregationalists, Catholics or Pentecostals, and we our families may have come from Ireland, England, Poland, Italy, China—or Mexico or Russia, but first and foremost, we were Americans. Not hyphenated Americans, or "universal" Americans from one of the American continents. We were distinctly US Americans—and we were proud of that distinction.
What set us apart from the rest of the world was not just America's affluence. Affluence comes from investing sweat equity in nation-building. What set us apart from the rest of the world was our moral compass—our belief in a Supreme God, and the lifestyle associated with right living. The needle in the moral compass of America pointed reverently towards God and to pious consideration of our fellow man—regardless of his station in life. We gauged our fellow man not by his financial net worth, but rather, by his moral compass: his integrity and honesty, his trustworthiness and moral cleanliness, and finally, his bravery and loyalty.
This is the yardstick by which most of us measure our friends. But, for some unknown reason we don't apply that same yardstick to those we elect to public office. Does it not make sense to "hire" mayors, Assemblymen, Congressmen, Senators, federal judges, governors and Presidents who possess the same qualities we expect in our friends? Why are we content with politicians who lack integrity, and who sell us out for 30 pieces of silver whenever they accept legal bribes that, with tongue-in-cheek, are referred to by the mainstream media as campaign contributions? Million dollar campaign war chests are merely favors waiting to be repaid—at the expense of the taxpayer.
Integrity and honesty. When we think about moral compasses, we instinctively measure family and friends with the same yardstick we use to gauge ourselves. We instinctively expect those we entrust with our friendship to be trustworthy because we, who were instilled with the attributes of Christian values and morality from our youth, are trustworthy. Do we not have the right to expect those same "good citizen" qualities in our elected officials? Not only do we have a right to expect it, we have a patriotic obligation to demand it.
About ever two years or so we can usually, in complete candor, say something like: "We've just experienced the uncovering of several cases of misconduct on the part of our appointed and elected officials. As citizens and good Christians we should have risen as one in righteous wrath and threw them out of office. But, we didn't. What did we do? Our apathy took over, and we decided it was someone else's responsibility." In point of fact, addressing the congregation at my local church on one such occasion, that is pretty much what I did say. It's like dé-já-vue. Whenever you open a newspaper or turn on the TV, its the same story replayed over and over again—only with a different name, a different face and a different political party. The only thing that remains the same is the small cadre of lobbyists and/or industrialists, businessmen and bankers doling out the bribes.
Political cronyism. Lack of integrity. Graft. Bribery. Deceit. Lack of trustworthiness. And most of all, greed and the lust for power. These men (and women) have no moral compass because the nation itself no longer has a moral compass. Let me cite a couple of examples.
On July 30, 2005 Congressman William Jefferson [D-LA] met with Lori Mody at the trendy Ritz-Carlton in northern Virginia just across the Potomac from Washington, DC. At the conclusion of their meeting, they walked to Mody's car in the hotel parking lot. She popped the trunk and handed Jefferson a leather briefcase containing $100 thousand in $100 bills. The money was to be used to grease the palms of some Nigerian officials in a deal supposedly concocted by Mody. The money was marked. Mody was an undercover operative for the FBI. Video camcorders in the room recorded the deal and four strategically-placed camcorders in the parking lot recorded the transfer of the bribe. Four days later FBI agents raided Jefferson's Capitol Hill home and found $90 in marked bills, wrapped in aluminum foil and stuffed into plastic frozen-food containers, in his freezer.
What makes the Jefferson incident most interesting is not that one more corrupt politician accepted a bribe. What makes it newsworthy is that, after being caught—and videotaped taking a $100 thousand bribe—the voters of the 2nd Congressional District of Louisiana elected Jefferson to his 9th term in Congress. Not only does Jefferson not have a moral compass, nor apparently do the voters of the 2nd District. Even more appalling, because Jefferson had to stand in a special run-off election against State Rep. Karen Carter on Dec. 9, he was applauded by the the Democrats when he showed up at the 110th Congress was sworn in. Democrats as a whole, it appears, have no moral compass.
On May 18, 2006 the GOP-controlled Congress launched an investigation into reports that lobbyist Jack Abramoff had given Congressman Bob Ney [R-OH] $50 thousand to play with at one of the Indian casinos in exchange for favorable treatment for the Coushatta Indian casinos. On Aug. 7, 2006 Ney withdrew from the GOP House race. On Sept. 15, 2006 he pleaded guilty to charges of accepting a bribe. On Nov. 3, 2006, four days before the election, he resigned his congressional seat. Ney was sentenced to 30-month and the slim GOP majority in Ohio rejected what they viewed as the Republican's moral lapse.
Zachary Space, the Democratic candidate for Ney's seat beat Ohio State Senator Joy Padgett by a margin of 62% to 38%. Most Ohio Republicans in the 18th District stayed home. They couldn't vote for Space and wouldn't vote for Padgett. Where Democrats don't believe accepting a bribe is grounds for removal from office, the GOP leadership removed Ney from his leadership role in the House and forced him to drop out of the 2006 House race. That was the difference in the moral compasses of the two parties.
While on the surface it looked like the voters' rejection of Padgett was a rejection of the GOP's lack of moral character. However, locals had reason to believe that Padgett's moral compass was, itself, in question. Many of the protest GOP "non-votes" in the 18th Congressional District knew that Padgett and her husband got a business loan for $737 thousand through JP Morgan Chase Bank and renegotiated a 3-year $100 thousand loan and then, 14 months later, filed for bankruptcy on their business followed, 8 months later in their filing personal bankruptcy. In the interim, the Padgetts transferred ownership of family property to Joy Padgett's brothers to keep the property out of the bankruptcy. In addition, the Padgett's sold their client list to a North Canton, Ohio company for $129 thousand—and kept the proceeds out of bankruptcy. Padgett's moral compass was also broken.
The largest majority of the American people, and most certainly the mainstream media, believe the moral compass of the nation was broken on June 17, 1972 when covert operatives paid by the Committee to Reelect President Nixon broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. The reality is that the moral compass of the nation began to disintegrate with the assassination of John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963.
On the morning of the day that Kennedy was assassinated, the US Senate Rules Committee chaired by Senator B. Everett Jordan [D-NC] was investigating the Vice President of the United States. The investigation was taking place in a secret session brought about by Attorney General Robert Kennedy's investigation of Bobby Baker after Kennedy discovered firm ties between Baker and several Mafia bosses who were doing business with Johnson.
As they were listening to testimony from insurance executive Don B. Reynolds, the Senators were unaware that the nation had just been stunned by the loss of John F. Kennedy who had just been shot in Dallas, Texas. Because Jordon sealed the hearing, no one on the Senate Rules Committee was allowed to leave the room. Nor was anyone allowed to enter. There were no phones in the room, so no one knew that JFK had been killed.
Nor did they know that man they were investigating had just become the President of the United States. Reynolds told the committee that he personally saw Bobby Baker give Johnson a suitcase containing what he was told was $100 thousand. The kickback, he said, was for LBJ helping Baker with a lucrative deal in Fort Worth. Reynolds also revealed that in 1950 Johnson and Baker purported helped Intercontinental Hotels Corporation get some casino licenses in the Dominican Republic for Mafia bosses Meyer Lansky and Sam Giancana. When the casinos opened their doors in 1955, Johnson and Baker were invited as official guests of the syndicate. For part 2 click below.
Click here for part -----> 2,
© 2007 Bill Barnstead - All Rights Reserved
Sign Up For Free E-Mail Alerts
E-Mails are used strictly for NWVs alerts, not for sale
Bill Barnstead is a Boston businessman and former Chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party. Bill has been a solid supporter of the GOP for over 45 years and has been a major contributor of the Republican party and Republican causes. He is currently disillusioned with the GOP and George W. Bush. The old warrior is now speaking out.
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