"I realize, Your Honor, we're hardly a moral society anymore. We derive hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue from pornography, gambling, tobacco, illegal drugs, prostitution...So what's the big deal about a few distasteful attorney ads? Well, a lot. What does it say when the officers of our court -- the players in our justice system -- overtly embrace sleaziness? I realize we can't all be noble, but what's truly sad is that integrity, dignity -- they aren't even goals we aspire to anymore." Jerry Espenson, attorney, Boston Legal
February 17, 2016
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Who better to tell you you're not a Christian than the Pope? I think it's part of his job.
And to explain the evils of capitalism, and lecture Americans, "There's something that doesn't love a wall."
Except around the Vatican.
It's nice when successful men share their wisdom with us. In fact, the Pope reminds me a lot of our president.
Both men are on the same page ideologically.
Both men hate capitalism, the United States and Donald Trump.
Both love to bond with dictators in Communist countries, such as Cuba and Venezuela, and never say a word about human rights violations.
Both love the poor, refugees and illegal immigrants, just as long as the poor, refugees and illegal immigrants never come to their door and ask to be put up for the night, at the Vatican or the White House. It's the "No room at the inn," "Do as I say, not as I do," scenario.
Socialism/Marxism seems to be favored by both, but who is to say? In fact people are reluctant to say.
But both men ignore how money generated by capitalism has been used by the United States to help everyone, everywhere, around the world.
Not every country does that. In fact, no other country does that.
When these men look at the U.S., they only see greed, they can only find fault, while ignoring the chaos, the bankruptcy caused by Socialism in every European country;
While turning a blind eye to the chaos caused by an open door policy to "refugees" streaming into those same countries;
While ignoring the grave threat posed by Islamic terrorists, and focusing on "Global Warming" as more of a danger.
I didn't think capitalism, criticizing the United States or the U.S. presidential race were part of the Pope's jurisdiction, but maybe there was a change made in Vatican II that I missed.
I didn't think Obama's batting record as president gave him the authority to advise anyone on anything, particularly telling a presidential candidate, "You'll never be president."
But both these men think their positions in the world give them the right to judge others, from their glass houses. Unfortunately the office doesn't always elevate the man.
But what if these men aspired to higher goals? There are men who do.
A poem I remembered speaks about that, about the type of man whom it is an honor to know, a type of man it is a challenge to be. What if dignity and integrity for themselves, what if the good of the people were goals again, as they used to be, for our politicians and religious leaders.
IF
By Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting, too.
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or lied about, don't deal in lies.
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.
If you can dream, and not make dreams your master;
If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop, and build 'em up with worn-out tools.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them, "Hold on."
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue.
Or walk with Kings, nor lose the common touch.
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much.
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run.
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And, which is more, you'll be a Man, my son.
Hold the line, America.