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Everyone
thinks they have the truth. And yet a person who has a high
level of intellectual integrity will find that over time the
truth changes. It changes because an honorable person is
always open to learn something new and sometimes take the
opportunity to look at things from other perspectives. An
honest person continually checks to see if new information
they receive verifies or contradicts what they already believe
or think they know.
To
not question and examine new information or facts is to
believe in dogma. People who believe in dogma are not
intellectually honest with themselves or others.
Everyone who is dedicated to being honest with themselves is
also dedicated to being honest with others. They will
eventually see the truth change and become more refined over
time as they obtain more knowledge. And with greater
knowledge, their understanding of the world around them
deepens and matures, becomes more accurate, and their
perspective changes... and that’s how wisdom is born.
A wise person knows he doesn't know everything and so he keeps
learning. The more you seek the truth with integrity, the more you tell
the truth with integrity… the more truth is revealed for you
to tell.
Corporations were originally conceived and brought into being
when a king decided he wanted certain risky projects to be
accomplished.
Before corporations came into being all merchants were
personally liable for any debts they incurred in their
business dealings. To equip and send a ship half way
around the world in search of treasure was once a very risky
thing to do. Later, to build large public projects like
dams and railroads required so much capital that few
individuals were rich enough to take them on without limited
liability protection. For if a project were to fail
because of some unexpected risk, it could wipe them out in
the blink of an eye. And so
certain companies were sometimes granted corporate status to
protect owners from personal liability, in order that those projects
could go forward. Originally this privilege was granted
for projects that were deemed particularly important to the king.
The
first incorporated business (then called a charter) was
granted to a mining company in Sweden by the Swedish king.
The Dutch East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company were
later formed to import spices from the new world. The
British East India Company exploited the East Indies and
Africa for their resources. Eventually, more and more
companies were granted those special privileges until today
almost any person can go into business and obtain limited
liability status for a small fee which protects their personal
assets from the claims of business creditors. But the
unwritten tacit agreement is that they are being offered
limited liability to carry on their business in a manner that
will benefit society as a whole.
So
corporations were invented to provide valuable goods and
services to kings and eventually to society. When
corporations create valuable goods and services and do so
honorably and legally they ought to be held in high esteem for
what they accomplish. But to the extent that they do
dishonorable things, which they sometime do, they ought to be
held accountable.
Similarly, when a president takes a sacred oath to preserve
and protect the Constitution, he or she is honor bound to keep
their word. And if and when they don't keep their word,
citizens, through their elected representatives, have an
obligation to hold them accountable. No one is above the
law. That's the fundamental cornerstone principle of our
Constitution. It’s the founding principle of our law.
The President is not a king; he or she is a citizen like
everyone else; a servant of the people.
An
honorable citizen pays attention and is willing to make
judgments based on the facts. And an honorable person
will check important facts they encounter, particularly if
they have not done the fundamental research to uncover those
facts themselves, but got them from others who may or may not
have a hidden agenda.
If
a corporation illegally pollutes the environment they ought to
be held accountable for the mess they make even though that
corporation may very well also do useful things the rest of
the time. A brilliant surgeon deserves a great deal of
respect for all the good he or she does helping to heal
people. But if a surgeon, say, murders someone he
doesn’t like, he still ought to be held accountable, face
charges, and if found guilty, go to prison… despite the fact
that he has done a lot of good work in his life. That's
how justice works. Banks provide valuable services to
customers. But if bankers knowingly cheat customers,
that's fraud and they ought to be held accountable for the
damage they do. A corporation owner needs limited
liability because of the risks of doing business. But a
manager or an owner is not entitled to limited liability or
limited accountability in order to commit fraud.
Our
Constitutional Republic was intended to foster justice and
offer every citizen a fair chance to find success and
happiness in the society formed under that Charter. The
people we elect to office, if they are honorable, will put in
place the best legislation they can honorably create--they
will do their level best--to make
sure that the system remains just and fair for every citizen.
What
protestors are complaining about is surely not the same for
every protestor who participates. But most of them see,
in one way or another, that today justice is not being served.
They know and have substantial amounts of evidence that lead
to the conclusion that certain bankers defrauded the country
and its people to the tune of trillions of dollars and have
not yet been held accountable. And that fraud has cost
every citizen dearly. And they know that since that
fraud took place, congress has not put in place any
substantive legislation that would prevent them from doing it
again.
They
know that Presidents similarly have betrayed their oath of
office; have perpetrated illegal acts at great cost to the
citizens of this country as well as other countries, and have
not yet been held accountable for their crimes. For
example, torture is illegal. Period. And starting an
unjust war is the worst crime anyone can commit under our
law. And no one is above
that law.
Protestors have accumulated evidence that
governments lie and that those lies too often are made to
cover up great injustices perpetrated against our own people
and other peoples. They were not empowered to do that.
When they do that they break the law, dishonor their office,
and they ought to be held accountable.
Protestors
know that corporations pay large sums of money to corrupt
corruptible legislators into producing faulty and unjust
legislation that favor the interests of those corporations
over the People’s interests and that results in dishonest
and unfair practices perpetrated against unsuspecting
citizens.
They
know that in order to earn illegitimate profits for its
shareholders, corporations often pollute or otherwise damage
the environment and pass onto society immense costs that
greatly damage the health, financial condition, and happiness
of innocent people. They also know that corruptible
legislators allow them to get away with their crimes in
exchange for campaign contributions that only serve to allow
the corruption and injustice to persist.
Now
if you don't know the facts, it's easy to remain unaware of
the crimes that some people and some corporations commit and
get away with. Without considerable research it might
not be readily evident that this corruption persists. One
problem is that this money also corrupts a corporate media
that aids and abets criminal corporate and public officials by
keeping ordinary citizens in the dark about their criminal
acts.
But
it’s also a fact, that if you really want to know what’s
going on in corporate boardrooms and in legislative offices in
your name, behind your back ,and you are willing to put in the
time to do the research, you can discover what’s going on
for yourself.
Unfortunately,
most citizens are just trying to make ends meet. They go
to work and when they get home after a hard day's work they
may not have the energy or the skills to do the kind of
research I'm talking about. It takes a lot of time and a
lot of dedication to discover what goes on behind the scenes
in Washington and in the boardrooms of large corporations.
One
thing I know for sure is how much time it took for me to
become educated and to do the research I've done; many thousands
of hours. The results of some of that research can be
found in my books and at my web
site.
The
protestors who now fill parks and streets in cities all across
America have legitimate grievances, whether any one of them
knows what all of them are or not. They have been
cheated. And so have you been cheated. We all have
been.
One
study shows that the top 1% of citizens owned 42.7% of the
country’s financial wealth in 2007 and the top 20% owned
93%. That’s a hint that something isn't quite right in
how income and wealth is distributed among members of our
society. Without the work of the bottom 80% the top 20%
would probably have to live in shacks, not in mansions... and
ride to work on horses, not in Mercedes. In any event, too
many of that 80% are being totally left behind, and it's not
fair.
A
legitimate democracy is not sustainable at current levels of
income and wealth disparity. An honorable person will
take the hint and begin to look at how and why it got
this way and why it seems to be getting worse. In our
society now, money rules. And if money rules, this is
not a society of, by, and for the People. An honorable
citizen will want to know what they can do about it.
I
like living in the United States and I like the home I live
in. I know that for my home to remain a pleasant place
to live I will need to make repairs and replacements from time
to time when things begin to break down. If the roof
leaks and I don’t repair it, I know it will only get worse
and if termites begin to nest in the walls I know my home will
be in jeopardy if I don’t take responsibility to get rid of
them. If I want my space to be clean and pleasant,
periodically I have to go around and look for dirt and whatever
else might be amiss. That enables me to wipe away
the spider webs, clear away the dust, vacuum the rugs, and
straighten things up. You can’t clean or fix things if
you don’t look for dirt or pay attention to what’s broken
or out of place. It’s not the most pleasant thing to
do, but it’s the loving and responsible thing to do. I
look for dirt in my home because I like my home and I want it
to continue to live there and continue to like it.
Well,
the same is true with respect to my love of country. I
discovered some time ago that the people I hired (voted for)
to keep things in good order had run amuck.
Instead of working a diligent 40 hour week keeping things in
good repair they were spending most of their time dialing for
dollars in exchange for favors in order to accumulate money for
themselves so that in election years they could afford to hire
public relations people to lie to me about how diligently and
honestly they’ve been doing their jobs so that I will keep
them in my employ. Now I know, that most of their time is
spent keeping secrets from me and trying to fool me into
believing they are serving my interests, when they are only
serving themselves.
I
found that the only thing they had been working hard at was
making sure that I would never be able to figure out how to
get rid of them even if I one day found out how dishonest and
feckless they were. I realize now that I was negligent
for allowing them to fool me for so long. I wasn't
living up to my role as citizen.
I was paying attention to the home I live in, but neglecting
the country I live in. Now I’m trying to change that
and I’m asking you to help because it’s your country too
and I can’t do it by myself.
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