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“This country could use a refresher course in ethics.” Nick, my 30 year old 6’7″ former defensive end for Yale number two son, works for a company in the Big Apple that sets up medical conferences.
As if this observation needs any support, here’s a column in Bloomberg about how nasty and entitled the new rich have been getting in the last decade :
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/evidence-builds-that-high-finance-breeds-rich-snobs/395081
On the rise of sociopaths/psychopaths in our society (they are pretty much the same thing : the former is thought to be more environmentally influenced, the latter more genetically), especially in corporate board rooms and c.e.o.s, and megabucksters of the financial world, Paul Rablak and Robert Hare have a book called Snakes in Suits. And Martha Stout, in her book, The Sociopath Next Door, contents that 1 in 25 ordinary Americans secretly has no conscience and can do anything at all without feeling guilty.
But the problem with radicalism is that it demonizes and paints everyone in the other camp with the same brush. There are also wealthy conservative Republicans and others who have worked hard and thought out of the box and did something innovative, made a tangible contribution to our material progress and well-being and reeped financial rewards, and it is mainly such people who have made the American conservation movement such a great success in terms of preserving wildlands, special natural places that deserve protection and to be made accessible to the public. In fact our magnificent national park system would not exist without the efforts and generosity of these visionary individuals. I have just received a huge, sumptuously illustrated coffee table book called Wildlands Philanthropy that profiles many of them.