Another one bites the dust! Well, more than one, depending on what time period we are discussing. Arnold shocked us (or not!) a few weeks ago with the discovery and then announcement of his child born more than ten years ago (12 or 13, I think) to a worker in his household. He and Maria are in divorce proceedings, and their four children together are left to try to make sense of it all. And many others of us as well.
Then just in the past few days, Representative Weiner’s on line and phone sexual indiscretions have consumed the media. It has also just been announced that his wife of one year is pregnant, and we assume, with his child. An interesting note is that Weiner’s wife is a close aide of Hillary Clinton, who can certainly provide some sage advice, having suffered through some of the same immoral behavior of her husband, then President Bill Clinton.
Then there is John Edwards, who has just been indicted for his thought to be illegal behavior of using campaign funds to hide and support his liason with his mistress, and the birth of their child.
There are others that could also be mentioned, Republicans as well as Democrats.
What are we to make of all of this? It is certainly not a new problem. Many people love to report on the shenanigans of President John F. Kennedy, who was able to hide some of his behavior since it was before Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs.
I am amazed at the number of people, especially men, who seem to think they can get by with these immoral (different than Weiner’s comment of his “inappropriate”) behaviors. What are they thinking? Or are they?
More important than what they are thinking is: what are we thinking? And even more than that, what are we doing? What are average Americans doing to counteract the moral decline in this country? Have our definitions of morality changed that much? Maybe so.
It is too easy to focus on Edwards, Weiner, etc., and fail to see what we are doing as a society about these same issues. How much are we willing to tolerate before we say, Enough?
It all relates to values. Have our values of morality really changed all that much, or are we too lazy to do the heard work to live our values? How are we showing leadership to our children?
Let’s worry less about the escapades of the famous, and focus on our behaviors. How are we doing in this area of morality?
Women, let’s start by hiding the cleavage. No, I am not saying that showing cleavage leads to indiscretions such as the ones mentioned, or that it is immoral. But it is inappropriate, and sometimes the line betwewen inappropriate and immoral is pretty close.
Women can clean up their act in some ways such as this, and put their energies into what they and their families can do to live apropriate and moral lives.
And yes, refuse to elect people who do not model the best of behaviors, before election, and when elected. When such problems as the current ones mentioned occur, we should act quickly and decisively, sending a strong message to our children that we as a society hold our elected officials to the highest standards, even when doing so may not be popular.
