How do we recover integrity and honesty among our leaders?

How was our government put up for sale? How did “legalized bribes', as William Lind called it, become “campaign contributions?” We know integrity and honor have been long gone in the global capitalist world, but why do our army generals now also lie?

Is it the loss of religion? I have always wondered if the past gentleman culture (eg. 19^th century England) arose due to the inherent non-materialism of Christianity, which wasn't adequate to the realistic needs of national and local survival. It has always been the military that has clung to the gentleman values of integrity and honor, but now even our military is lying about our recent wars in the middle-east. When soldiers lie men die and nation's fall.

Even political philosopher's like Leo Strauss have given permission to neoconservative despots to lie to the plebeians in the interest of their dubious causes, apparently affirmed by the dreams of Plato, although I doubt if that tribe needed much encouragement in lying.

I suppose easy survival, luxury, tends to lead to the decline of the rigorous values necessary for real survival. The question is, how do we recover integrity and honesty among our leaders in our easy-living modern age?
 

Perhaps when our real survival depends on ending the lies and the bribes then we will recover, whether that recovery shows itself in religious morals or military values, or both. Honorable and heroic men and woman will rise out of necessity, either to revive our nation, or to begin again out of the ruins.