"Treason doth never prosper. What's the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason." -- John Harrington
"Greed is good." -- Gordon Gekko
"What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world but lose his own soul?" -- Mark, 8:36
"Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third ... might well profit from their example," said Patrick Henry.
Just as Richard Nixon had his Leon Jaworski, the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate affair, the current administration might well profit from this example.
What price success?
For some folks, material wealth is the only form of prosperity worth pursuing. For others, financial wealth is immaterial.
So which is better, financial wealth at the cost of morality, or moral wealth at the cost of materiality?
Or is it possible to have both?
Americans face a choice of accepting the leadership of one who chooses personal material and financial wealth over any thought of what may benefit others in a nation of 350 million people.
Abject personal loyalty seems to matter more to Him Who Shall Not Be Named than loyalty to a social ideal or a principle of a considerate society.
But there is always a choice, even as some choices are easier than others. And as Patrick Henry pointed out, "If this be treason, make the most of it."
Ambition can be a good thing, for it encourages effort in search of material well being, but without a sense of morality and concern for the well being of others, reckless ambition can be hazardous to the health of others as well.
Somehow, then, in a socially responsible world, it should be possible for the general population to impose some semblance of morality on those who cross the boundaries of acceptable behavior.
That, then, is the choice facing members of the Congress of the United States, whose responsibility it is to rein in a president who would be the master of all he surveys.
Otherwise, America is on the road to oblivion rather than a high road to social success.
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