NY Times, 11.12, Divorce Risk Higher When Wife Gets Sick, by Tara Parker Pope, on Health

Divorce Risk Higher When Wife Gets Sick? What happened to love promise and to obey until death do us part? In the John Edwards pathetic saga another lesson needs to be mastered.

Perhaps the real lesson to be learned from the whole sordid matter involving John Edwards, the former VP nominee and his mistress, is that we need to look at future potential nominees for national office outside the ranks of former office holders. Politics is the fine art of compromise and negotiation but principles of ethics, commitment, responsibility, honesty, integrity, sacrifice and personal discipline are also part of the paradigm for office seekers and holders. Our nation and its voters are too often confronted by office holders, like Edwards, Sanford, and others, whose indiscretions damage the credibility of the candidate selection process. Edwards has become the poster boy for all that’s wrong with our nominee selection process.

Yet, in fairness, there are many who serve the nation having come from the professional political jobholder classification who remain honorable and embrace the values cited in this article. However, in our time the visual parade of deceptive, dishonest, office holders and candidates covered in the media is not encouraging.

Jim Crawford’s fine article on the Occupations of our Founders is worth your study and is taken from National Archive’s materials on the initial 55 framers of the Constitution. Our founders came from a varied pool of citizens including farmers, shippers, retirees, scientists, school administrators, ministers, students of theology, lawyers and business owners, all known patriots. Although, these dedicated men did not profess or exhibit perfection, their maintenance of basic moral and ethical principles were strongly exhibited.

We need in 2010-2012, to look actively in our great nation for those men and women who are known for their committed work and are under girded with strong moral and ethical principles. At a time of massive job losses, home foreclosures, plant closings, loss of income, intrusive government, increasing taxes, widespread crime, violation of our borders, challenges from dangerous oppressive regimes around the world, energy demands, small businesses facing stress and interference, we must find serious people to address these issues. In the film The American President, Andrew Shepherd, the fictional president, holds a press conference to challenge his ludicrous opponent Bob Rumson. He basically observes that we as a democracy face serious problems and we need serious people to solve them. This is the crux of our challenge today, we need to identify, nominate and elect to office those serious servants.

In 1630 while on the deck of his tiny ship laying off the Massachusetts coast, John Winthrop told those settlers in the boat with him, WE SHALL BE A CITY UPON A HILL-THE EYES OF ALL PEOPLE ARE UPON US, SO THAT IF WE SHALL DEAL FALSELY WITH OUR GOD IN THIS WORK, WE SHALL UNDERTAKE, AND SO CAUSE HIM TO WITHDRAW HIS PRESENT HELP FROM US, WE SHALL BE MADE A STORY AND A BYWORD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

A young military man offered himself for public office in 1946. He gave an Independence Day address and eventually campaigned for the 11th Congressional District seat in his state. He was not perfect, but he was committed to his nation and fellow citizens. His speech is paraphrased as follows: OUR GOVERNMENT WAS FOUNDED ON THE ESSENTIAL RELIGIOUS ELEMENT OF INTEGRITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL, AND THE IDEALISTIC ELEMENT, A FIXED REGARD FOR PRINCIPLE-THE CONVICTION THAT OUR EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY OF THE LORD-THAT RIGHT IS RIGHT AND WRONG IS WRONG. REMEMBERING THE PATRIOTIC ELEMENT, LOVE OF COUNTRY AND WHEREVER FREEDOM HAS BEEN IN DANGER, AMERICANS WITH A DEEP SENSE OF PATRIOTISM HAVE BEEN WILLING TO STAND AT ARMAGEDDON AND STRIKE A BLOW FOR LIBERTY AND THE LORD…MAY GOD GRANT, AT SOME DISTANT DATE, ON THIS DAY…THE SPEAKER MAY BE ABLE TO SAY THAT THESE ARE STILL THE GREAT QUALITIES OF THE AMERICAN CHARACTER AND THEY HAVE PREVAILED. These words were spoken in 1946 by young John Kennedy.

Another great American expressed his dream when he said, AND THAT GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE, SHALL NOT PERISH FROM THE EARTH, Abraham Lincoln from The Gettysburg address.
The ancient scripture reminds us THAT NO GREATER LOVE HAS ANY MAN THAT HE WOULD LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR A FRIEND.

Let us look for these servants; certainly they can be found in America.

Dr. Phillips
Bloomington, IL