Bob Inglis — A Man of Conscience
I admire the pure guts and heart of Bob Inglis, who sacrificed his position as member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina to stand behind the consensus of the scientific community in calling for solutions to climate change. He got “tea partied” right out the door in the last election cycle, but he did what he believed was right.
This is proof that there really are Representatives who vote their consciences. In fact, we have a name for them; they’re called “ex-Representatives.” It’s a sad commentary on what we’ve become as a nation. Our country has plenty of people of great skill and unflagging integrity, but they can get no closer to positions of leadership than I can get to flying to the moon on a surfboard.
Inglis is quite an impressive human being. Click here for this piece I had written earlier on the work of this unique character.
I’m quite sad to see him go, and especially for the manner and cause of his going.
With the influence of what passes as tea-party “ideology”, neither a Dwight D. Eisenhower, nor a Richard Nixon, nor even a Ronald Reagan could achieve the GOP nomination today. And yet we hear endless and baseless cries of “socialism” today against Obama, when he has varied his path precious little from that of GW Bush.
Eisenhower realized – and vocalized – the fact that every fighter plane that was paid for in peacetime meant a schoolhouse that wasn’t. Nixon recognized the value of – and acted to implement – a government agency with teeth that could, and did, help our nation to protect and preserve (conserve) our land, our rivers and our atmosphere. Reagan saw the necessity and desirability of cooperation, compromise and shared goals across the political spectrum.
What we have to do now is to help each other to get our entire population to realize that we have cared, and must continue to care, about all our fellow Americans and our fellow human beings, about the future of all our children, and about the future of our nation as a collective enterprise and a vital component of the natural world (a world from which we must always be able to harvest in order to survive and prosper). We must not merely operate as a scattering of isolated transactions driven by short-term self-interest.
If we care about each other, and about our future, enough to move cooperatively demand and circulate good values backed by good data – and to demand and perform good action upon that data – we’ll be well-positioned to improve our prospects as a species, and to wisely direct our power as an influential component of our biosphere. If we don’t care about each other, then we, and our children, and our societies, will all perish clawing at each other over the rotten scraps.
In the words of Ben Franklin, “We must hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.” This concept doesn’t apply only to revolutions; it applies to evolutions as well. Franklin’s practical wisdom firmly grasped the indispensability of cooperation. He founded Library Company of Philadelphia in 1731 – the prototype of the free public library – and was also the prime mover behind the establishment and expansion of the postal service in America. It’s no surprise that both of these highly beneficial cooperative enterprises – the free library and the postal service – are under fervent assault by those who promote self-interest as a guiding light.
By the way, ol’ Ben not only ensured the formation of the penny post to deliver letters to people’s homes here in America, but he also worked to guarantee the impartiality of the delivery of the newspapers without regard to their content. That impartiality was the colonial version of “net neutrality” and is as important to Liberty today as it was then.
Franklin was also a central figure in establishing a fire company, a college, a philosophical society, and a hospital – all of these were organizations of mutual support and aided the general population – and he helped improve streets and street lighting in the city of Philadelphia for the benefit of all the citizenry.
Indeed, though only white male landowners could vote when it was established, our Constitution opened with a statement of purpose we will do well to heed and celebrate in our actions today:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
I’m reminded of a simple tale of heaven and hell. A person visits hell, and finds all the souls starving as they gather around cauldrons of healthful nourishment. They could not feed themselves, and starved because the ladles chained to their wrists were much longer than their arms. The person then visits heaven, and finds the conditions exactly the same in every respect, except all the souls fed each other.
Truth
Non-Violence
Cooperation
Direct Action
Perseverance
Wow, dude, you write really well. And that tale at the end really does speak to the human condition. Thanks for your encouragement — and occasional constructive criticism — via your many comments through the years.
Craig,
Bob Inglis was a representative – SC’s 4th congressional district I believe. Not senator.
I’ve met him, and he seemed an honest man… But he was convinced there was some kind of future in hydrogen cars – which there of course is not…
But he did seem like an honest man.
Thanks; I’ve made that change. And yes, I agree with you about the “hydrogen economy.” Here are a few short pieces, including a video, that I’ve done on the subject: http://2greenenergy.com/?s=%22hydrogen+economy%22.