The Patriot Post® · Congressional Lack of Ethics

Anthony Weiner is just the most recent and not the worst of a plethora of Congress people to breach the Government’s own Rules of Ethics. It was reported by the Sunlight Foundation that two Congressmen-to-be, Pete Sessions and Mike Fitzpatrick failed to attend the swearing-in ceremony on Wednesday, January 5, 2011. Rather they were attending a fundraiser at the US Capitol in Fitzpatrick’s honor, a clear violation of the House rules.

Clear, overt, knowing and callous regard for their own rules and standards is commonplace in our government. Presidents, Senators, Representatives, Judges, Civil servants and others bound by the two codes in effect violate the rules on a daily basis. The code of silence and its complement, do not point a finger at a violator, or else, are the prevailing status quo. Acceptable seems to be anything with which one can get away undetected by an outsider. That approximately Ten Square Mile area known as Washington, DC is a veritable cesspool of all manner of nefarious behavior.

From Ethics in Business & Society: Selected Quotations Compiled by Dr. L. Murphy Smith, Texas A&M University comes this exhortation from the most ethical of our Presidents, George Washington, “Associate with men of good quality, if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.”

Washington, in his farewell address, urged his countrymen to forswear excessive party spirit and geographical distinctions. That admonition was ignored during the Administration of Thomas Jefferson when inter-party strife became nearly intolerable. With the election of Andrew Jackson, the two-party system was here to stay.

President John Adams was also a highly moral man and from him we get the following from the same source, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

President Abraham Lincoln was more succinct; “Honor is better than honors.” Also from Dr. Smith.

Two more quotes from Dr. Smith’s work indicate the value of religion and morality in politics and in the government. “To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” (President Theodore Roosevelt). “When the Nazis came to power, I looked to the universities that prided themselves upon their intellectual freedom, and they failed me. I looked to the German press, which prided itself on the freedom of the press, and it failed me. Until at last the churches stood alone, and that for which I once had little regard earned my respect.” (Albert Einstein, after World War II). http://acct.tamu.edu/smith/ethics/quotes.htm

While seeking reliable sources of information for this article, I found several so flagrantly biased, I considered them far too unreliable to cite here.

It is safe to say, “An individual without a connection to our Creator has refused to adopt the moral standards consistent with the House Ethics Rules or the Standards of Conduct expected of every government employee. No human is perfect and is not expected to be. However, we all expect our elected officials to act in a manner consistent with good moral behavior, to refrain from promiscuity, pedophilia, bestiality, homosexuality, wife beating, child abuse, cheating, stealing and a myriad of other acts you would not want to become public knowledge.

The advent of social networking is in and of itself not evil, pernicious or causative of bad behavior. The popular networking sites have the potential of much public good and, if so inclined, users can make a travesty out of the facility of the net. Anthony Weiner is not a victim of the inhuman Twitter site, he is a violator of the site’s own rules. http://twitter.com/tos

Mr. Weiner has demonstrated extremely bad judgment, violated the House rules, and brought shame on the US House, himself and his blameless spouse. For all these indiscretions and violations, Mr. Weiner deserves to face the rules committee, stand in the Well of the House, be tried and summarily dismissed. He should not be permitted the cowardly and unpunished evasion of justice for his offenses. Good Americans neither need nor want people so lacking in character to represent them in Our House.

To clean The House, the Rules committee might reconsider the cases of Charles Rangel, Maxine Waters, Sheila Lee Jackson, Al Green, Keith Ellison, Nancy Pelosi, Rush Holt and others. Just in case the powers that be are unable to get the goods on these latter folks, I will be more than happy to provide documentary evidence. At least Pelosi and Holt could be impeached and should be.