One Honest Man

If you look downtown during the summer months you can usually see four or five yard sale signs in various places. Some of those signs are nailed to telephone poles along the street. Over several years there might be dozens of signs nailed to and removed from any given pole on a busy street and ordinarily I would never give them a second thought. However, each time a nail, tack or staple is pushed into a pole, the integrity of that pole is compromised and becomes weaker.

One nail might seem like a small thing where a huge pole is concerned, but according to the power company, a few nails in a pole can make the difference between a pole standing or falling under pressure. In the words of one city official from Virginia, “The nails and screws used to post signs create direct and indirect hazards. The primary danger is that these sharp objects can tear the rubber gloves and sleeves our employees wear to protect them from getting electrocuted. A secondary danger is the damage that’s done to the pole. Over time, water seeps into holes surrounding nails, damaging the pole. Eventually the pole deteriorates and has to be replaced.”

The other day I was talking to someone I know who is having some hard times. He was complaining that the people he was forced to work with were dishonest and often unfair. Their behavior was causing he and his family a lot of grief and hardship and he was wondering what he could do about it. His decision, in the heat of his anger, was to become even more dishonest than they were. Somehow he thought it would 'even' things out.

Where in this world can you find one honest man who will not compromise his integrity? Who is honest enough to refuse the offer of something for nothing? Who isn't willing to take something if he thinks he 'has it coming'? Who is willing to be honest even when people around him are being dishonest? Who can keep their integrity when it hurts?

I once listened to a politician who had a reputation for 'honesty'. He said that in the government you simply had to learn to compromise in order to 'get things done'. He said that there were times when he voted for something that he knew was not right in order to achieve something else that was right. There is a name for that kind of thinking: The End Justifies the Means. And by those means have all societies in the past fallen. Dishonest people begin doing wrong in order to supposedly do right. Those who have been wronged by such behavior then feel justified in doing wrong to those who have wronged them and the cycle completes itself in utter chaos when there is none who will do right for the sake of right. Laws become more and more strict and invasive as more and more people become dishonest in order to protect themselves from the dishonesty of others.

Like the power pole that is compromised by a few nails, a few acts of dishonesty can indeed compromise a society and many acts from otherwise 'good' people can measurably hasten it's demise. Show me one honest man who can resist the temptation to compromise when the world around him is falling to the ground, and I will show you a man who will stand when others fall. Show me a power pole that has been kept free from invading nails and I will show you a pole that has several more years of service to show for it. Show me a man who doesn't feel entitled to someone else's property, doesn't compromise his integrity because others do, and keeps his word at all costs and I will show you the future.