What Is It Like To Be In Politics?

How hard could it be to stand up for your beliefs?

How Do You Keep Your Faith And Be In Politics?

I cannot tell you from personal experience but I can relate what I was told when I was a senior in high school. The dad of a friend was the Mayor of the city and was talking to us after a Bible study at church. For convenience let’s call him Fred — not his real name. What Fred said made a strong impression on me.

Fred was promoted to mayor when the mayor he was assistant to was indicted for financial corruption and removed from office. Now nearing the end of his term, Mayor Fred told us career-minded boys that until he became mayor, he enjoyed his time in office. As a Christian he had strong morals and a vision for improving the city. He believed he was making a positive difference in office and and his principles were not often tested.

Then he became mayor and things suddenly changed. His phone started ringing throughout the day and many of the calls were from constituents who were “just asking a favor” for some “great idea” that would “benefit everybody” (especially them.) And they were willing to “make it worth his while” with a little incentive under the table for Fred’s influence.

Fred had stood on his principles serving out the term he was in and successfully said “no” to all the coercive requests. But now it was time to run for re-election and he had a dilemma. Though effective and popular in office, his concern was being able to endure this continual pressure to do the wrong thing. He realized he was going to have to withstand four more years of the same pressure without succumbing or even accidentally slipping up. Would he finally cave and trade his principles for some quick bucks?

What would you do?

He decided that for him, the pressure was too great a risk. He was at the stage of life where he wanted to stop with his reputation intact rather than risk ruining his reputation, even if he were the only person who knew of the failure.

This was in 1975.

Fast forward to now. If this was true for the mayor of a small city in 1975, what temptations do you imagine the people in office face now? If you find it hard to believe that so many people could be in on the same corrupt agenda at the same time for extra money or reputation being threatened or even just job preservation, think about what I just related.

The higher the office the higher the stakes. You know something is wrong when a middle class American comes into office and in 2, 4 or 6 years becomes a multi-millionaire on a good but not luxurious salary. Is it any wonder why you have elected officials in office that never want to leave? Or a President who seems to be doing things that demonstrably hurt people and the nation? Or lock step decisions by almost all authorities in the entire world that do not align with common sense and steal freedom?

I am satisfied with the conclusion I made. I will let you wonder what it is.

What do you think?

What actions can we take to correct it?