Has our need to feel better about our own failings, prurient desires, etc., really become so bad that it is indeed asking too much of our elected representatives to refrain from taking photos of their genitals and send them flying around the Internet (the photos, I mean)?
How upside down has our society become that we can do no better than be about split in our opinion as to whether Representative Weiner should resign or not? How did it come to the point in America that one such as he is not so ashamed and mortified by his own behavior that did he not immediately resign and move to a deserted island to live out the rest of his days?
Perhaps the most tiresome argument put forth by the “justify filth at any cost, because maybe someday I’ll want a pass on my own filth” crowd is the who among us argument. You know that one – we cannot point figures, because who among us has not done similarly bad things.
First off, it’s an argument replete with assumptive arrogance. There are plenty of people among us who not only have not done what Weiner has, but who’ve not done anything even nearly as stupid.
Even more idiotically posed is the who among us is perfect argument. Bill Bennett, former Secretary of Education who is famous for espousing moralistic viewpoints but who himself was targeted as a hypocrite when his gambling addiction became public knowledge, had what I think is the best response to the notion that if one is not perfect, one may in no way make a judgment about another. Paraphrasing here, Bennett said that if one must meet the standard of perfection before he can talk about right and wrong, then no one gets to talk. That’s an important point. Being something less than divine does not deprive those of us in society, in an effort to keep that society whole and functioning, from making judgments about others that are designed to serve the greater good – none of us is even close to perfect, but does that mean we should not, for example, sit on juries? It may well be the most insane of arguments from the “don’t judge” crowd.
As a society, we claim to want to see better behavior among ourselves, more virtue, better sums of decency…but when someone acts in contravention of those ideals, we too often back away from enforcing the consequences of having fallen woefully short.
Beyond all of that, count me as one who unapologetically does hold elected officials to a different, higher standard than that by which a private citizen should be evaluated. I hold the judgment of elected officials, particularly those who serve at the federal level, to greater scrutiny, because they are not making decisions solely on behalf of themselves and family members, but on behalf of their constituencies and on behalf of the entire citizenry of the United States. We should expect and demand the judgment of those folks to be superior to that of the average citizen.
Society continues to evolve in countless numbers of ways, and yet, the notion of increasingly relaxed standards of decorum, behavior, and outright decency is not an example of evolution, but rather, a good example of de-evolution. It’s bad enough when this kind of de-evolution permeates general society…that is, those of us who make up the Great Unwashed…but when it reaches the highest levels of government, it can be downright dangerous.
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Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press).
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