Clinton resigned as president based on his affairs, not his performance. Cuomo resigned as governor of New York based on his conduct with women, not based on the fact that he cost the lives of nursing home residents en masse during covid. Platner resigned as a candidate for the governor of Maine based on misconduct with a partner, not based on his unfortunate circumstances. So is the moral of the story that those who hold the honor cards are at fault for bad leadership in America or what?
looking at the votes for this post, I don’t think that the community is holding to its name of “No Stupid Questions” because they seem quite upset about this
It wasn’t just Platner, Cuomo, Clinton there’s enough other examples and I can think of Al Franken, John Edwards too.
The thing about America and the “modesty police” is that they’re full of fucking shit. I think America has a very awkward relationship with sex and as forward thinking it seems like they’re pushing in some directions, they’re being dragged down by religious zealots in others. These religious people “believe” in monogamy and sex is just for procreation. However, they don’t really believe it. Just like they don’t really believe in the second amendment nor are they pro-life. As Obama said, they cling to their guns and bibles and it’s been easily weaponized by politicians. It’s because the surface-level argument is easy to defend. It’s like a JRE episode where it just sounds good at the time. Then they think they have all the facts and people that disagree “haven’t thought about it”. Real compassion and understanding and complex issues take energy and they’re spending it all on outrage and their truth.
Obama, by all our knowledge, is more religious and monogamous than Trump. Did they (the religious pricks) give a shit? No. It’s because they don’t really believe it. However, they’ve convinced themselves they believed it. So we’re having a dishonest conversation by addressing their fake concerns.
How do we deal with this?
I’m sorry, I didn’t really answer your question, BUT … you should watch this Crossfire episode with Frank Zappa about this:
https://youtu.be/B9856_xv8gc (1986)
It’s really old but you can definitely see Frank knowing where the tides you turning.
Another link is an evolution professor (who is Catholic) Kenneth Miller talk about Intelligent Design
https://youtu.be/d4r2J6Y5AqE
He was asked to debate by the creationists and they chickened out. He would have dismantled them but he turned it into a lecture but he talks about the fractured thinking they have. If you believe your opponents (in this case, people who believe in evolution) are aligned with the devil, of course you’re going to disagree with them.