Hypeocracy

If you've not heard about the misfortunes of Senator Larry Craig, consider yourself both blessed for having missed the circus and cursed for having to read about it from me. On the plus side, I'm going to skip the sordid details and go straight for what's really important about the event: it highlights a difference between Left and Right on the subject of morality.

Specifically, the main charge against Craig is not what he did, but hypocrisy. Craig, as a Republican, is held to the familiar standards of traditional decency. (Yes, "traditional decency" is a loaded phrase, but it's the best one I can come up with that hasn't been co opted, redefined, and bumper stuck into obsolescence). Democrats are not held to those standards, or any other save the most clear and outlandish violations of law. Why is this so?

It is because on the Left, traditional standards of decency are not part of their morality. Morality, I've shown, is the set of rules for behavior that we believe everyone ought to obey. People differ wildly on what those rules are, but we all have them and a sense that ours are correct. On the left, even those who cling to traditional decency do not hold others to that standard, but prefer tolerance of wickedness over its disdain. Traditional decency is to liberals a matter of preference and lifestyle.

To liberals, then, traditional decency is an ethical choice. Since Senator Craig self-selected into a group adhering to traditional decency, liberals react to him as someone who has committed an ethical violation.

But don't fall for the "we just hate hypocrisy" line: consider the Global Warming alarmists who are palleted around in limousines and private jets while telling the little people to walk. Hypocrisy doesn't matter, only opportunity matters: the opportunity gain power by making public the peccadilloes of their political foes.

By the way: a United States Senator accused of public lewdness would not plead guilty unless he were guilty. If not guilty, he would come before the public and explain the misunderstanding, if any, or simply deny the charges. To plead guilty in secret and then exclaim innocence in public strains credulity, and where politicians are concerned, it already doesn't take much to make my lie detector peg the needle.

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