By By Sherry Digmon
E-mail is a dandy thing. Friends send me so much good stuff that I might not come across otherwise.
Some is funny and provides a good chuckle during a hectic day. Some is sad and really makes me think about the human condition. Some is downright touching, sort of a "Chicken Soup for the E-mail Soul."
Some e-mail makes me angry. A good example is the following I received the other day. It included some rather frightening statistics, if they are, in fact, accurate.
The e-mail reads as follows.
* 29 have been accused of spousal abuse
* 7 have been arrested for fraud
* 19 have been accused of writing bad checks
* 117 have bankrupted at least two businesses
* 3 have been arrested for assault
* 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
* 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
* 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
* 21 are current defendants in lawsuits
* In 1998 alone, 84 were stopped for drunk driving.
Most likely we could find similar statistics in any group of 500 people. But isn't it just a bit disheartening that these stats are reportedly found in THIS group?
We've been having some discussions in church recently about judging people. We all know the verse n Judge not.
But it's awfully hard when you see these kind of stats among the people who are making our laws.
Is not "law-abiding" one of the requirements to run for Congress? Let's try making "decency" a requirement for those three arrested for assault.
Maybe this is what we get. We Americans persecute our politicians. Maybe we have scared off so many good people that we are left with the ones who shoplift and write bad checks and drive drunk.
I often wonder why anyone would want to run for public office. Even on the local level, it can be brutal.
Consider the plight of average office-holders, such as mayors, councilmen, school board members and county commissioners.
They live under a microscope.
Their constituents think that very little they do is right.
Everybody wants things they can't provide.
No matter how much they do, it's not enough.
And every citizen thinks he or she could do a better job.
I would hope our congressmen would be the cream of the crop. I'm sure some of them are.
And we all know that nobody's perfect.
It would seem that our congressmen take that statement to new heights.
Or in this case, depths.