Integrity -- On the Brink of Extinction?

It seems that personal integrity is becoming less and less important to the people of this country. Case in point -- the people of South Carolina voting former governor Mark Sanford back into public office despite his lack of integrity in dealing with his affair with a woman in Argentina. The man had made a joke of his office, his state, and his marriage, and yet the people would rather vote for this Republican with a total lack of integrity than take a chance on the upstanding Elizabeth Colbert Busch because she is a Democrat

Can you really trust Mark Sanford? Let me put it this way: Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. If I were that Argentinian fiancee of his I wouldn't trust him for a moment.

Much of our politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, seem to have ditched any sense of integrity whatsoever.

For many years the Republicans gleefully espoused the lack of fidelity and family values of the Democrats and one Dem after another was caught in a compromising situation. They were keen to paint themselves as the party supporting the "disappearing" family values.

And that was great -- right up until the truth caught up with them. Wow, it turns out that they have just as much trouble keeping their trousers zipped as the Democrats! Who would have guessed that this is an issue of humans in power and NOT a partisan issue?

This same "family values" party is also the party that wants to get rid of many programs that support women and children. It is a party plagued with misogynistic and racist white men and yet they can't figure out why their party is on the critical list.

Both sides should be ashamed of selling out their integrity to the overly-powerful gun lobby to not strengthen background checks for gun purchases to include gun shows and private sales. Despite what Republicans and gun enthusiasts want everyone to believe, this is NOT an attempt to deny any law-abiding citizens the right to bear arms. It IS an attempt to weed out some of the not-so-law-abiding citizens from having this particular avenue to get guns. The majority of their constituencies were for this law.

Both sides of the aisle have some culpability in the fact that the budget still hangs in limbo. There are items that the military would have liked to cut to save money, but Congress insisted that those programs remain intact, no doubt because they affected programs the politicians treasured.

Some Republicans have openly declared that they will block any ideas or plans that come from the Democrats -- especially from President Obama. This is partisan politics at its worst. Congress has been holding the American people hostage to support their petty bickering.

Politicians have devolved into spending all of their time worrying about getting re-elected and playing to that rather than getting down to the work they were elected to do in the first place. The rest of us working stiff would have been fired from our jobs long ago if we were sporting this kind of job performance.

Here's an idea: stop blaming Obama for being ineffective when you block him at every turn, pull yourselves out of the lobbyists pockets, stop blaming the poor for being poor, keep support programs in place, tax the rich equitably, be fair, be honest, don't wag the dog with issues like abortion, "birther" red herrings, and gay marriage, and, most of all, start being for all the people you are there to represent.

Take back your integrity and own it. In my opinion that would go far further in getting you re-elected than a boat-load of campaign rhetoric. We're worth it