Politics and Ethics

The title in itself is a huge oxymoron, for no two words are as apart as politics and ethics. 😆

The central premise for this topic is a simple question. Would you vote for Anthony Weiner? Or perhaps even, would you still vote for Bill Clinton?

I'm in a conundrum of sorts. For a long time, I have been a huge fan of Anthony Weiner. I believed, and still do that he is a clean principled politician who always stood for something honestly. I loved his humorous speeches on the house floors and at other events. I loved how he passionately fought for the 09/11 workers bill, and passionately opposed several critical budget cuts. He was definitely a political hero for the progressive movement.

However, the recent sexting scandal has completely maligned his image and integrity. He was caught having inappropriate conversations with six different women, he tried to hide it, tried to get them to hide it and is now exposed. He's lost a lot of credibility and finally resigned after a lot of pressure.

The question is does a politicians sex life or personal life matter? Isn't their performance and accountability as politicians more important. A company would not fire their best salesman because he had affairs where he went (except of course if its a religious company). Anthony Weiner has not been caught taking bribes or committing fraud. He has not been associated with corruption or bending to powerful lobby groups. He did not solicit underage or commit deviant acts. He did not display blatant hypocrisy like other politicians who claim to have squeaky clean Christian values and were found doing questionable things. He did not even have an explicit physical affair or countless encounters - it was all through twitter or text messages, mostly text and a few suggestive images with only one real explicit image exposed.

56% of his constituents would still vote for him. Only 33% thought he ought to resign. Over 70% think he acted unethically but did nothing illegal to lose his job. I think I'm with the people who would vote for him. To me he did his job, and thats what matters - his personal life is between him and his family to figure out. Same with Bill Clinton back in the day, I don't care who politicians are screwing as long as its not the nation.

On the flip side is it right to support a politician who is clearly unethical on a moral ground. They are supposed to serve as role models, to represent the people and should we not expect a higher level of ethics and decency from them. If they cheat on their wives and lie about it, what assurance do we have that they will be honest in everything else that they do. Even if not illegal doesn't lewd behavior from politicians set a bad precedent for society.

So the question on hand is how important is ethics (in terms of sexual relationships) important for politicians? Is it more important that they are moral in terms of their relationships or more important that they are moral in terms of their jobs? Should we be holding them to much higher standard or do we expect too much out of them?

Maybe in the case of an ordinary person, sex life should be a private affair, but for someone who lives in the public eye, it can matter:  a politician's private life can interact with public life and can become an problem. The politicians also have responsibility to the public. What if the issue is not just sleeping around, but if the politician is a drug addict, then the public would have reason to doubt ethics and morals. When do you decide that this moral/ethic is higher vs the other!  If you have decided to be a public figure, the public has a right to know any flaw that could affect the way that public officials does job. The ethics and morals are at questions on which the person is trusted to do their job!
Edited by night13 - 12 years ago

Power politics can do all dirty things, they can spend millions for 10min pleasure! .....If they invove illegal sex activities there is danger of security to the country.. A person who was holding posts in centrl and state governments may be knowing may confidential and secret matters abt the country...His weekness can be exploited by the enemies...But It is a shame that people elect these criminals again and again!😕

We must understand that a leader is as much a man in flesh and blood as we are. We can't expect a leader to be a saint if we are lustful and selfish. However a quality of a good leader is that he must be capable of presenting himself as flawless in the eyes of the people.That's crucial. People will follow you only when they are convinced that you, despite being one of them, is stronger and abler than any of them. If you check the history, you'll find several leaders and Generals who had many flaws and weaknesses and yet people assumed them to be infallible and led their nations to victory and glory - because they successfully cloaked their weaknesses. Right from Arthashastra to Mahabharata (not Bhagwad interpretations) to Sun Tzu's The Art of War, every text speaks of this quality of an able leader.

Yes, I would vote for Anthony Weiner if agreed with his platform.

Did someone call out to the Republicans ...here I am! 😆

Aren't the liberals .. republicans?

The thing about the Anthony Weiner controversy is that he did not do anything illegal. All he did was engage in explicit conversations and share some explicit pictures. He stopped if someone told him to stop, he did not solicit prostitutes or minors.

The only thing that makes the whole situation ethically questionable is that he is a married man, whose wife is now pregnant. Compared to Bill Clinton and some other sex scandal politicians, he did not even physically cheat on his wife.

The fact remains that other than this Weiner is a clean politician, who has never had any corrupt, questionable or underhand dealings. It is unfortunate that we have to lose a good politician because people would rather have politicians who are corrupt, who make deals with corporations and special interest groups at the expense of their constituents rather than a politician who made a few bad judgment calls in their personal life.

What is even more disturbing is that this whole expose is uncovered by Andrew Breitbart a very sleazy journalist who uses unethical means of spying and sting operations to literally entrap liberal politicians and portray liberals in a negative light.  He and his protege James O'Keefe are liberal scandal hunters. The fact that under his guidance O'Keefe literally kidnapped a news reporter and tried to seduce her on tape to trash her reputation is all forgotten. The fact that they unethically tarnished Shirley Sherrod's is all forgotten.

Weiner messed up, but not in his job - but still he got forced to resign.

In this case the expose was true, but when will we tell Breitbart and O'Keefe to stop trying to trash people's reputation unethically.

Alright, lets begin by why are you a Republican and why do you support the Republican party? What do you have to say about the recent tax breaks for corporates and the budget cuts in terms of education, social security, senior care etc? What is your opinion on states stripping workers of their rights to collectively bargain.

No Liberal does not equal Republicans.


Liberal/Progressive/Democrat <------>TeaParty/Conservative/Republican

Libertarians scatter all over depending on what they stand for.