BS: Real character, integrity & honor

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 05:26 PM

As for Rapaire's scenario, without a few more specifics the only answer has to be "it all depends".

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Amos
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 05:10 PM

Depends on whose endo it is inu.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 03:45 PM

Yeah Bill........Kinda' resembles skunk.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 03:36 PM

*sniff...sniff*...hmmm, methinks I smell a touch of innuendo in the air.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: The Shambles
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 01:19 PM

The thing is that there are many jobs where having real character, integrity and honour would be a real problem.

It is just a case a case of getting the right people in the right roles and keeping the wrong people out of them?

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: The Shambles
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 01:04 PM

I get irritated with many people for many reasons.

I never get irritated with anyone.

The trouble is that all those who claim to have real character, integrity & honour - make life difficult for those of us who really have.

[joke]

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 11:55 AM

"We get irritated with many people for many reasons. But we get irritated by those who show real character, integrity and honour because even though we may not do it - we usually know what the right thing to do is. And it really pisses us off when we see someone who not only does it - but who actually practices what they preach and is seen to always honour any assurance they give."

I get irritated with many people for many reasons. But I get irritated by those who show real character, integrity and honour because even though I may not do it - I usually know what the right thing to do is. And it really pisses me off when I see someone who not only does it - but who actually practices what they preach and is seen to always honour any assurance they give."

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: The Shambles
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 10:16 AM

Trying to be a person of real character, integrity & honour - should not be thought to be the same thing as being trying to be perfect.

Those who try to be persons of real character, integrity & honour are given a hard enough time.

Those who claim to be perfect - tend to be crucified.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Amos
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 09:44 AM

HONOR

The greatest way to live with honor in this world
is to be what we pretend to be.

             Socrates

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Grab
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 07:40 AM

The fact is that no matter how much we may say we value people of real character, integrity ang honour - we also tend to find them to be really irritating.

Sometimes true - but we accept their right to have their opinion as they accept our right to have ours, because if they didn't then they wouldn't fit the description.

Subject: RE: BS:
From: The Shambles
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 07:14 AM

Bob Geldof's Birthday

As soon as someone is considered and described as a person of real character, integrity & honor - other will find this in itself irritating. They then set about nit-picking away to try to find fault with this discription.

Knowing how to spell the word 'honour' is perhaps less important that knowing what it means or being honourable.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Oct 06 - 02:53 AM

I for one can't answer you Bruce. I know how I repsonded to something similar in the past. I would hope and assume that I would respond the same way in your scenario. In truth though, I can't say that I would. I would want to answer you that I would of course, but how would I really know? I can say that I know I generally perform/act/decide in the same way each time on any number of matters, but I don't always behave the same way twice. So when you ask me to answer truthfully and not on what I would wish......I can't. Does that make sense?

It's why I am never disappointed in my close friends of which I have had very few. I know they can always be counted on to come through as I expect but if by the odd chance they don't, it's okay.

Also.....I'm kinda' confused here on a part of this discussion. Being irritating might be a trait of some individual who has integrity and honor but it certainly isn't the norm is it? As a matter of fact I find many of those I feel have integrity and honor are NOT irritating. Somehow the above discussion seems to link integrity with irritation and that's complete crappola. Also, someone can stand up for what they believe to be the right thing and have integrity and honor but it doesn't make them "right." Most everyone here would say Hitler was a fuck-up but he had the courage of his conviction. Not the best example of course, but you get my point I hope.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Amos
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 11:06 PM

Find a way?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 10:48 PM

If you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that correcting an old wrong, a wrong based in racism, would at a minimum show up as a black mark on your annual performance review and which could very easily cost you your job (under a different excuse, of course!) -- would you have the character and integrity to correct the wrong?

I'm not talking about a wrong that is actionable in court, nothing that simple, but a wrong all the same. A wrong that was and could continue to be hidden away as a dirty little secret. You could let it slide and keep a very nice job in a very nice place and no one would ever know.... Especially if other jobs were hard to get and you were one of the "over 50" crowd.

I knew of just such a situation. Real life, not a classroom exercise.

What would you do -- not what you hope you would do, but what WOULD you do?

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: pdq
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 10:39 PM

...here is a British subject with honor:


                                                Honor

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: bobad
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 10:33 PM

It's the reward we colonials got for remaining loyal to the crown.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 10:24 PM

*mumble, mumble*....never will understand why some folks waste all that ink and use all those extra bytes adding extra "u"s into words..I read 'colour' and 'honour', and I keep trying to pronounce that extra letter

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Peace
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 10:15 PM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 10:12 PM

We know very well how to spell HONOR


































bet you tried to click 'back' on it!

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Peace
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 09:32 PM

I really wish you folks would learn how to spell H O N O U R.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 08:45 PM

"Just because you are a character, it doesn't mean you have character" - The Wolf (Harvey Keitel - pulp fiction)

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Amos
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 08:39 PM

I'd love to hear Sham recite those truisms in the first person singular, instead of ducking behind that presumptuous editorial "we".

A

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 07:07 PM

Shambles said it. "We get irritated with many people for many reasons." Sometimes it may be because they are saying things that challenge us because they have more integrity than we feel comefortable.

But sometimes that has nothing to do with the reasons they drive us screaming mad...

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: The Shambles
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 06:56 PM

William Wilberforce irritated the hell out of people for 18 years - until he finally acheived a Bill for the Abolition of Slavery.

And no Wolfgang - the fact that you find someone to be very irritating does not mean they have real character, integrity and honour......

We get irritated with many people for many reasons. But we get irritated by those who show real character, integrity and honour because even though we may not do it - we usually know what the right thing to do is. And it really pisses us off when we see someone who not only does it - but who actually practices what they preach and is seen to always honour any assurance they give.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 04:51 PM

No, Amos. I think the Shambles spoke in a moment of candor. I think he is referring to his reaction to Joe Offer. *G*

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Amos
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 03:28 PM

Actually, my sense is that Sham has spoken honestly. Except for one thing. He has placed his thought in the plural second person so it is not owned by himself, as it would be if he said "I get irritated by honesty". Of course using circumlocutions like "we" and "everyone" and "one..." is safer, but it loses the authentic ring of the true self speaking out I think. At least, it does when I do it! :D

I think it is a question he would need to answer as to why honesty is an irritant to him.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Wolfgang
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 02:49 PM

The fact is that no matter how much we may say we value people of real character, integrity ang honour - we also tend to find them to be really irritating.

Is that biconditional, Shambles?

I often find Clinton Hammond irritating, should that tell me something about his character etc?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 02:09 PM

"mudslinging" - what an appropriate term for what happens when mudcatters lose their rag.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 02:01 PM

Nice try Shambles....

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:55 PM

I'm depressed..............................

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: The Shambles
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:55 PM

The fact is that no matter how much we may say we value people of real character, integrity ang honour - we also tend to find them to be really irritating.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:52 PM

Talking about recognising integrity in others despite difference of opinions:

My parents began life as MoR Liberals (not in the US sense, the word there has lost its meaning); not Socialist, but not Right-WIngers either. In later life they veered to the Right, temporarily even condoning the extremist Colonels Junta in Greece (1967-73). Yet all along, their best friend was a Communist. Plenty of arguments when he visited, but they always parted with a kiss. And every time I asked my parents about this seemingly unusual friendship, my father would say:

"But xxxx is such a great person, with real honour and integrity. He happens to be a Communist, but he can't help it - poor guy!"

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:47 PM

Beat ya to it, Ebbie! :-P

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:39 PM

I was going to say that, Clinton. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: number 6
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:31 PM

Interesting thread. Some very good thoughts, definitions posted so far.

I'm with what has been posted so far ... I'll add understanding, sincerety and admitting one has been wrong (when realizaed) with grace and humility.

Please, let's keep the mudslinging out of this thread.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:28 PM

" It's as if people find it hard to believe that people can honestly disagree with them."

I disagree!

,-)

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Amos
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:28 PM

I hear you, Kevin. There are certain earmarks I associate with the sound of someone telling the truth the best he can -- even if I don't agree with him. Truth-telling invokes a sense of trust, in my experience. Complaints and blaming others usually do not.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:22 PM

Recognising someone as having integrity isn't the same as agreeing with them about how they see the world. And agreeing with someone about how they see the world isn't the same as recognising them as having integrity.

That's pretty obvious, but it's something that seems to be missed time and tiem again. For example, how often does it happen that a disagreement about some moral or political issue in a thread here turns into accusations of dishonesty, when what is involved is just a disagreement?

It's as if people find it hard to believe that people can honestly disagree with them.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:21 PM

"I am personally disappointed that there does not even seem to be a majority of people with character, integrity and honor."

So then bog off....

Funny how people who line up to smootch your knob are the ones with character, and the people who stand up against your drooling and ranting are thieves and liars....

Get a life Donuel

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Amos
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:16 PM

Shambles:

Your post, above, seems to me to be disingenuous, not in integrity, not the truth, and an acting-out of an individual experience only.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Grab
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:10 PM

Ebbie, I guess there's a further point - refusing to stand by when other people you respect are unjustly attacked.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 12:49 PM

Roger, I liked your 'Amen' and I thought of you in connection with what I wrote. But... Having integrity oneself does NOT entitle one to impugn someone else's integrity on the basis of what amounts to a difference of opinion. I happen to believe that Joe Offer is a man of character, integrity and honor. So buzz off, buster.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: The Shambles
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 12:29 PM

Very sadly - the unsaid motto of the current Mudcat Forum would now appear to be -

Show me a person of 'real character, integrity & honor' - and we will soon kick all that crap out of them

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Amos
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 12:22 PM

There is a turning point that comes early or late in a person's life, where the clear realization comes in that a ferocious dedication to telling the truth is a path to sanity and personal freedom; and that the social machinery of falsification, in which we all have been trained, is a machine that breeds numbness of heart and mind.

'Course, there is a concomitant of courage required to do this, but my experience is that the "dangers of telling the truth" are actually much less than the amorphous fear that precedes doing so.

The other great thing about truth-telling is you do not have to remember what you said to whom.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: The Shambles
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 11:32 AM

Amen.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 11:22 AM

See, I think of having character, integrity and honor as being the willingness to stand openly for what one believes. Willingness to be vilified if others do not agree with your stated position. Willingness to sign one's name to a controversial stance. The refusal to speak untruths about an enemy or people holding opposing views. The refusal to spin something to one's advantage when one KNOWS that the other's view - for that moment - is RIGHT.

I do not think that it is necessary for one to die in the cause of having character, integrity and honor. I think it is far more important to LIVE with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 10:40 AM

So True
I got thinking about character when Woodward said Andrew Card has true character. Card did not sugar coat or avoid answering Woodward's questions in 'State of Denial'.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 10:33 AM

Character is simply standing by what is right and true. Not what others tell you is so, but what you yourself believe to be so. Believe it down in the very core of your being, believe it because it is one of the things that make you you. Bend, yes, for truly good reason -- but never break.

It is not swayed by "peer pressure" or "political expediency" or "the bottom line" or by the teachings of Pope or President or Ayatollah or Rabbi, although it may agree with the tenets of a religion.

I've been fortunate enough to have met a few people like that, and I've disagreed with some of them.

As for honor -- simply live a life of character and integrity.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 10:20 AM

George, you have true character and clear insight.
Last night what was an attempt at praise turned into a pessimistic 'woe is me' born of nursing two boys back to health while Mom is on a business trip.

"Being tested" is a valuable theme that I will give much thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 04:34 AM

Strength of character is like any other kind of strength, in that it has breaking points - different for points for different people. For some the breaking point might be the safety of their family or loved ones, or their faith. For some it goes well beyond that even; and for others it stops well short, perhaps at the point where they simply might appear "bad" or silly or whatever - in other words prone to simple peer pressure. So I don't think it makes sense to talk about such traits in absolute terms.

How impressed you are then by other people's character and integrity and honesty, depends on two things: Your own standards, i.e. where do you put the bar for yourself; and the circumstances in which you've known them, i.e. whether they have been adequately tested in your view.

Donuel, from what little I have known you through your postings I guess your own standards are pretty high, so I am not surprised that only one person has passed the test for you; there may be others that you have come across but have not seen tested yet.

I like to think that my own standard is high-ish too; at least, I think it is higher than that of my mother's; though I suspect lower than my father's. And yet, I have failed my own standard half a dozen times in my life already. I call it pragmatism - some might call it cowardice.

We don't know if we can even live up to our own chosen standards, if we have not been tested. And many of us (thankfully) go through life without being strenuously tested for loyalty to family, country, faith, friendship, we have not fought in a war, have not suffered penury or true battle for survival.

Yes, many of us might have been broken if tested to such extremes. But we were lucky. That should not detract from our worth, so we shouldn't slight the untested majority; just praise those few who, when tested, came through with flying colours.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 12:31 AM

We have a lady running for City Council here in Wilmington,NC in a special election whose character has impressed me.

I can count the politicians who have impressed me that much on one finger.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 10:38 PM

Then you're running in the wrong crowd, Don. In my life I'm blessed with lots of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 10:29 PM

no problem, as I said I don't know or care about coookies unless they are hot and gooey. anyway thats not the point. If I even had one its...

Maybe I am personally disappointed that there does not even seem to be a majority of people with character, integrity and honor.
In fact it seems to me that they are few and far between.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 10:24 PM

Sounds much more complicated the way you put it, Donuel. As Jon said, if someone wants to post to the 'cat on his own 'cookie' (his own identity) you log off and s/he logs on. If s/he is posting on your cookie, it means that you didn't log off.

For all this logging on and off, of course, one goes to the Quick Links scroll and clicks on 'log off' or 'log on'.

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 10:16 PM

Don't understand you. You log out he logs on - where is the problem?

Subject: RE: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 10:09 PM

Don't quite understand the business of the cookies - can you clarify?

Subject: BS: Real character, integrity & honor
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 10:04 PM

These traits are often imitated by politicians to no avail.

The real stuff? Like art, you know it when you see it.
By thier well intentioned words there are obviously many people of integrity here but I have only met one. That says more about my psychology when most people here congregate together at get aways numerous times for a decade or more.

The "mudcatter" I met, not only spoke well of the founders but of the dearly departed great minds that once mingled here.
The ethics this person had were alien to me. When I asked if they wanted to post something in this forum they said "Oh no, not on your cookie" In fact I was told when people at their house post on the mudcat they are sure they have their own browser with their own personal cookie. I don;t know from cookies but I felt that I had taken a bite of one and boorishly offered it for someone else to eat :^)

Some call it an old fashioned trait to be truthful all the time, but when it is being done you sense it. Many people run to the woods rather than admit to something but people of real character step up to the plate and deliver. This is not considered to be a good team player trait in a den of thieves and liars. Truthful people are called leakers, rats, boy scouts or dead men walking.

Nope, its good to see true character for a change. Honor, integrity, these are not qualities we have come to expect in our leaders. It is what we sometimes see in our common man or woman. Yes I may not get out much but it is important to know that these people exist and that at least one is here.