If I hear one more liberal excuse as a private matter an adulterous politician I think I will scream! I do, however, have a cure for this.
Here’s a question we need to ask candidates before they are elected:
“With the recent public spotlight of adulterous politicians, and this question requires only a yes or no answer and I will give you one minute to explain your yes or no answer, my question is, is this a private matter? Should the public have a right to expect their politicians to not commit adultery?”
HELLO! 😯
Most politicians run on values and high standards and so I think this is a fair question. I want to know if there is another Bill Clinton or Elliot Spitzer, is their shameful adulterous behavior strictly a private matter. Any politicians that answers yes get the heave-ho from me.
The twisted, contorted, and sad explanations coming from liberals defending Spitzer’s despicable, illegal, and hypocritical behavior is a very revealing commentary on society. As I wrote in my book “Understanding Evangelicals: A Guide to Jesusland,” we are in the middle of a societal civil war.
Are we paying attention yet?
Ya know, I don’t care if a guy or gal has fooled around on their spouse. I don’t. That’s a matter for one spouse to hold the other to account. BUT, it’s sorta like the difference between forgiving and forgetting. Everyone deserves forgiveness, and I do my best to give it whenever offended etc., but no fault should ever be forgotten lest there’s no point in studying history, of learning from mistakes, and there’s no experience to be gathered. If a politician (D or R) is having the most raunchy, disgusting, perverted sex with someone other than their spouse, I don’t have anything to forgive-it’s not that they broke a vow to me, but I cannot and should not and will not forget that this is a person who will take a vow before God, pledge their lifelong, undying love and emotion to a person, then break that vow just to get their wick wet. Be it Clinton, or Craig, or Spitzer, or McCain…they didn’t break a vow to me, and so I have nothing to forgive, but I will not forget. I’d be a fool to ignore the fact that a person was trusted intimately, and that trust was broken.
Of course, how that person handles the revelation of the affair shouldn’t be forgotten either. If they beg forgiveness, and so forth, and are forever faithful afterwards then it’s safe to say they learned their lesson and won’t make it again. If not…then we know they’re more interested in themselves than their vows and the trust they beg of others.
My $.02
America has sunk so low into the abyss that wrong is right and right is wrong.
Even if one disregards the moral laws, adultery is a crime.
If we are not guided by moral laws or laws of the land, what guides us? It appears “laws of the jungle” have taken over.
When we elect any politician in office, we do so with the assumption that they will maintain high standards of ethical behavior, higher in fact than what we expect of our non-politician friends. If a politician’s spouse cannot trust him or her to be faithful sexually, how can we as Americans trust him or her to be faithful to us when it comes to other issues, such as money and power?
I had no particular opinion of Spitzer before, other than that he appeared to be a little too aggressive and ambitious. Now, however, I would not trust him to be my town’s dog-catcher.
He has to go, as do any other politicians who think that they are above the law. If we are willing to lower our expectations of them, anarchy will result.
The Drum and Cannon
I would ask them if they concurred with the following statement by one of our great Founding Fathers Noah Webster who said:
“Let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God…If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted..â€
If they agree with the statement my follow up would be if they considered adultury “principled” behavior.
Scott, to your point: It’s not that Spitzer “broke a vow to his wife.” What is relevant here is that the highest office holder and chief executive in charge ofupholding the highest law of the state (The NY Constitution) and enforcing its laws and statutes himself broke the law in taking part in an illegal prostitution ring. For that alone he should impeached if he doesn’t resign. Not sure what the standards are in the NY Constitution for “high crimes and misdemeanors” or “bad behaviour” but the fact of the matter is that the chief executive officer violated his sworn oath. Bottom line is he should resign immediately. Men used to do that at one pt in our nation’s history. Violating your sworn oath is NOT a “private matter.”
The preceding postings have valid arguments and make some interesting points.
I loved the last posting by Gregg where he states “Violating your sworn oath is NOT a “private matter.†I am in total agreement. Just think about it, oaths and vows are never private, they are made with witnesses. They make these statements publicly and therefore it is not a private matter.
Sure your “average Joe” will be able to keep his adulteress affairs a secret, at least for a time. But “Joe didn’t chose a life in the “public eye”. “Joe ” also is not soliciting my vote or my trust for a political seat. It would be difficult to trust anyone who could betray the trust of someone they had vowed to “love and be true (faithful) to, forsaking all others til death do us part”. If they could betray that trust, how could I believe they would be true to any promise they would give to me.
On a personal note, adultery is a sin and breaks the laws of God and of man. Why would I put my trust in someone who could so easily push those laws aside for what essentially is a momment of pleasure. How quickly would he/she be to trade away my trust in them for another such momment.
Sorry, got off point there. Basically these candidates have chosen to place their lives out there for scrutiny. I am not so naive to believe that any candidate would have a perfect life (only one perfect man has every walked this earth, Jesus Christ) but I do expect that they be a man/woman of integrity, loyalty and honesty. All three of these characteristics are violated with one such adulteress affair.
Private, I think not. The very fact they are running for political office and will guide this country or their state or cities etc… limits the realm of their private life. You want my trust, my vote, then tell me you smoked pot, had an adulteress affair, cheated on your taxes, lied about your military service record and the list goes on. I will applaud your honesty but as with those who committed these offenses in the past, you will not get my vote. Your judgement is skewd, but I will respect that you came clean.
Sadly, the very nature of adultery is to lie. In light of this, can you ever get an honest answer to such a question?
I just say one thing – character! I give a hoot what a person does in their own privacy. But if someone who is elected to office can’t show character in their private life, how can they have character in their political life. My mom used to say that politics is like a brothel. A former school teacher, turned politician said that in order to become the minister of a state (Germany) or a chancelor, you have to rub elbows. Sadly, that is what politics is all about or at least it seems.
Acer just told me my computer has been shipped back 🙂
As a christian I expect that he or any representative of the people would not break any of the ten commandments including adultary. However God’s forgivness allows me to not judge as well as forgive (but how many trangressions?)
As a human and “secular person” I believe ethics and moral integrity should dominate society. [How can we prosper if every man is doing what is right in his own eyes? If every man were doing what he thought was right or what felt good how could we have ANY laws against murder, terrirism, tax evasion etc… I see almost every law as moral law.]
back on point: I would not trust him if he laundered money or supported spies and terriorists, which is all part of ethics and integrity (not to mention against the law). However, the bottom line is ANY figure in an ELECTED position should be required to adhear to a high code of moral ethics because he represents “us.”
A word to the wise: if you have to sneak around to do what you want to do, then what your doing probably is not a good idea (unless it’s eating chocolate cake after midnight…nope probably not a good idea either!)
One of the things that I tried to get a point across to some of my liberal family members when Bill Clinton “got Caught” was the fact that if a person can’t be trustworthy in his or her family life- how can we expect them to be trustworthy in high office? This is one of the main points when the privacy issue is brought up. If this were just some guy who got caught with a mistress or prostitute or whatever- that would be between that guy, his family and God. However, when someone is running for any kind of public office- they do so knowing that their actions will be on display for everyone to see. Is this fair? I think so. It comes back to the first point of trust, but also the fact that these people are working for the rest of us. If their time is spent galivanting around and doing things that even if not against the law, but something which will hurt someone- they ought to be fired. If this was a regular employee of a company who used his time when he ought to be working for his boss, but instead is visiting prostitutes and most likely charging the costs to the company credit card- he would be fired, and could also be charged with a crime. Why should we expect any different with our elected officials? One more thought- even if some people believe that adultery or prostitution is not an issue morally, just think of what kinds of important decisions could be swayed or overlooked because our elected officials are engaged elsewhere. I have often thought that if Bill Clinton had spent as much time doing his job- instead of his girlfriends, we may have not had to be involved in the wars we are fighting now….
Hi Dave,
I thought that, talking about sexual sin and morality, this article fits the topic: http://www.nolanchart.com/article2957.html. It was an eye-opener to me.
Oops: It’s http://www.nolanchart.com/article2957.html