“No man is ever so concerned with a friend on a ledge
fifty stories high,
as he who is handcuffed to him.”
Loyalty is paramount in any and all successful relationships. We learn as very young children that if you avow your undying love to another, it’s best not to be found eating glue with some curly haired blondie, who may be considered a potential paramour. Later in life in perhaps the greatest of all tests of allegiance, you must pick your best friend for your baseball team, who falls down trying to hit a curveball and has since you were both small. Several years of threatening to kick his ass for being unable to hit anything not thrown down the gut and arguing on any given subject, go by and you are each other’s best man. A life seldom hangs in the balance to test your loyalties but in your heart of hearts you both know you’d be there for the other.
A successful job or career demands a degree of loyalty as well and must be reciprocal. A good work ethic goes a long way. You being among the few who made it to work during the great blizzard may very well be a tiebreaker when a promotion comes up down the road. You may stay on with your company when the going gets tough for it. This loyalty was built on mutual respect. Not always the case. Blind loyalty sans any respect is often a recipe for disaster.
In a negative light, loyalty is a necessary component of organized crime. When a crime boss briefs his underlings on a pending bank robbery, it is considered a poor career decision for the getaway driver to offer an alternate proposition:”Instead of shooting the bank dick, let’s simply write a bad check for $50,000.00 and be on our way.” His last thought while wearing cement wingtips and sinking to the bottom of the Grand River was, “ yeah blind loyalty would’ve been the way to go.”
Blind loyalty is sometimes a facade for self preservation. There’s currently a fella, ex-politician, facing charges of some sort in New York City and his purported supporters and enemies alike are lending support to his plight. “This prosecution violates the American rule of law.” “If this indictment stands, America as we know it is over.” One school of thought is that politicians waving the U.S. flag in defense of the accused may have a not so veiled agenda. An opposing view might imagine Congressman Jim Jordan and Senator Lindsay Graham jointly waving a U.S. flag saying, “oh shit, he knows where the bodies are buried.” The accused is said to be a tad self centered and would likely send any number of people under a proverbial bus in lieu of any inconvenience to himself and the ‘supporters’ concern is well founded. The line of the handcuffed is a long one and damned if anyone can find the key.
WJK/04/02/23/507
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