Integrity Matters
June 28, 2006
Government practices don't violate
integrity
Question: (E-246)
Dear Jim:
The government is tapping phone lines and monitoring internet
activities; while roadside cameras spy as we drive. Are
such practices violating integrity?
Response:
No! The architects of rigorous intrusions into
our lives are often the same people we charge with keeping
us safe and secure. The trend toward the selfishness: internet-bullies
and cyber-clods, exploit others with wholesale disregard
for privacy. Internet pedophiles seduce, rape, and murder
children.
Terrorists use cellular phones to detonate bombs. Egotistical
drivers turn scenic highways into killing fields with
road rage.
Reality-based television programs boil over into filthy
language and fighting; ostensibly meeting a market demand
for cesspool behavior.
It should be common knowledge that unless we operate
with integrity, including self-regulation, society will
demand increasing government oversight. When
individuals choose to ignore constructive boundaries,
then power-wielding authorities will carry-out intrusive
monitoring to the cheers of many.
Disregard for others encourages the creeping hand of
intrusion, strangling freedoms previously taken for granted.
Unfortunately, non-thinking individuals regularly trade
freedom for security, at least, short term. Television
program hosts Jerry Springer and Maury Povich have replaced
conversation with screaming - lavishly rewarding
a behavioral model that now witnesses 10-year-olds using
semi-automatic weapons to solve playground arguments.
Violence begins with an idea and ends with death, and
it must be stopped. Invasion of privacy, in the
name of security, is a trend that will be difficult to
reverse until society is prepared to self-regulate through
such integrity-centered behaviors as character, openness,
honesty, graciousness and civility.
Respect for others will displace a culture of "me
first" when more individuals stop cheating at work
and home.
Office computers are for work, not games. The telephone
at work is for connecting with customers and prospects,
not "chatting" with friends.
Home is where "true partners" support one
another, through thick and thin; honoring commitments
of mutual-support and fidelity.
We're all obligated to police personal and business
environments, monitoring and controlling guests who visit
there.
If you lock your doors before you leave home, then why
not do the same with the televisions and computers that
open your home to potentially hideous intruders?
Demand that public servants, elected and appointed, work
to combat destructive activities - on streets,
in neighborhoods, through television and the internet;
and, yes, inside their own agencies.
Support constructive values by challenging destructive
behaviors when and where they occur - promptly, clearly
and graciously.
