Integrity – Weepy Wednesday (for a somewhat different reason), episode 8

 

My father-in-law, Lloyd Kincaid, passed away on November 1, 2007, at the age of 82. He served in the United States Army during World War II, from 1943 to 1945. On October 4, 1947, he married Trink, and they had three sons together, the middle one being my hubby. He worked as a meat cutter and later as a cabinet maker.

But what many Wisconsinites remember him for is that, from 1973 to 1990,  he served first in the State Assembly and then in the State Senate. And that he had more integrity than anyone I've ever heard of in politics.

Fairly early on in his career, a bill came up that would adversely affect the people of his district. He represented small rural communities in northern Wisconsin, and this bill was designed to help residents of larger cities at the expense of towns like his.

When his political party learned that he intended to vote against this bill, the party's leaders told him that if he didn't vote for it, they would find someone else in the party to run against him in the next election. They could guarantee that this person would win.

He would have nothing to do with it. He met with the leaders of the other political party, and they told him they would support him. So, he switched parties. (And to be clear, in case you research this and discover which party is which in this story, it doesn't matter. In our current political climate, you are either a Democrat or a Republican for life, and Lloyd would have chosen to switch parties no matter which one he started with.)

The moral of that story is that political parties have wielded this kind of control for decades. Reminds me of the movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". If the television networks weren't already run by one party or the other, they would be playing that movie incessantly right about now.

Maybe if our current leaders in high places had their priorities set on the people they serve, rather than mindlessly following their party, the world would be a better place. Maybe they need to be reminded of that. And maybe in the next election, we need to remember that and vote for the person and their beliefs, rather than the party they are affiliated with. 

LLoyd in the middle standing behind Tommy Thompson