In many areas of our country, corruption has lasted for generations, with every citizen paying the price in higher taxes, and the lost of rights under guaranteed under the constitution. Corruption unchecked is like a cancer; it will spread until we the people have no rights and our voices will not be heard.

Due to corruption unchecked, Boston has the Big Dig, and now a young man is grieving for his wife. Boston is a city that is full of the history of corruption in its government. It became a way of life for the people of Boston, yet corruption costs money, taxes go up, and the wrong people prosper.

If you drive on bad roads, think of the Big Dig: 14 billion dollars and it was your tax dollars that helped pay for part of it. Investigations are going on but the money has been spent.

If you live in an area where conflict of interest among your elected officials doesn’t seem to matter, and it has been going on for years, then you have a culture of corruption.

If you live in an area where special interests have more say about the direction of government than you the people, then you live in an area where the culture of corruption has taken hold.

If election fraud is part of your history; if the dead are still voting and non-citizens have been voting for years, then you have a culture of corruption.

If, in your area, the only people who are getting jobs are friends of high officials, and jobs are created to give friends and relatives work, while others go without, you have a culture of corruption. Cronyism costs money, and the state and town budgets will go up to pay for it.

With a culture of corruption, equal justice under the law is no longer valid, high officials are not held to the same standards as the public, and the people lose trust in their law enforcement agencies.

If you have such a fungus in your town, get rid of it as soon as it shows or it will spread until all of your rights as citizens are lost. Democracy cannot survive in a culture of corruption. Neither do the laws of the land.

Do not let the culture of corruption become a way of life for your state or for your community.

Our vets went to war to fight for our freedom. We owe them many thanks, yet if we do not fight the culture of corruption, their sacrifices will be in vain.