Private Lives Are Not Indicative of Professional Capability

I don't know why I feel like opening this can of worms, other than I feel like I need to voice my opinion in some form or another in light of yet another political "sex scandal."

Let me just make myself plain, people have private lives, and no one is a saint.  Okay?  We're not in the Victorian era, and we have some pretty backward and archaic notions when it comes to sex and sexuality and sexual natures/proclivities, etc. Everyone is going to fuck up from time to time and they should be held accountable for those fuck ups, but their whole lives shouldn't be defined by it unless it's something really huge, like genocide.  Hitler may have been a vegetarian painter who was rejected by art school, probably liked to clog or some such shit, but when you systematically murder millions of people because you're in a snit?  That makes you a mass murdering fuckhead. That's the kind of thing that should define a person.

So, with that said, I don't think that "sex scandals" or the fact that someone got a traffic ticket makes them unfit to perform their job. Most of the time the societal transgression that people are accused of or actually did perform aren't illegal, and have no fucking bearing on their professional ethics.  People are constantly confusing Morals with Ethics and using them interchangeably. Sorry, that's not the way it works.  Morals tend to be societal mores and guidelines for acceptable behavior, thought, etc. Ethics (in this particular instance) refers to the practices of business and what is good or bad and ideas of that ilk.  They are NOT interchangeable and are actually exclusive of each other. 

I don't care that you find something morally reprehensible or it violates your personal code of honor or behavior or that it is against the mandates of your particular religion.  In most cases, it has no bearing on whether someone is able to perform their job effectively and well.  If there was a problem with someone's work, they probably wouldn't have been able to do it for long without someone pointing out that shit doesn't quite work right. Everyone is entitled to a private life and if there's something that violates a code within that person's social group, then it needs to be kept in that group.  A man cheating on his wife is between he, his wife, and their lawyers, should the need arise.

I'm talking about Anthony Weiner.  There have been calls for his resignation from office because people find his actions reprehensible and wrong and dirty and naughty and a whole slew of other words.  I don't think he should resign because honestly, all he did was engage in a form of fantasy.  He was fine and dandy with him carrying on this "affair" for several months until he sent a picture of his penis and the woman receiving it went to the press.  And folks, it was just a penis.  Almost half of the world's population has one, and if they don't have one, they've probably seen one before.  It wasn't like he sent a picture of him putting babies on spikes.  It was a dick. 

Now there's also an investigation about whether he used congressional cell phones or computer to conduct his "lascivious" actions.  What does it matter?  How many other members of congress use those things for personal communication and use all the time?  What does it matter as to the content?  It was just as personal a use as someone else using it to order pizza, or check his Facebook, or look at porn.  Sorry to break it down like that to some of you, but it's true. 

It offended your morality, but no one was physically hurt by it, and the woman trying to make herself the victim by saying that he "made her talk that way and do those things" is a repulsive glamour whore.  She is.  She talks about how he humiliated and degraded her by "making her" do those things.  If she were so humiliated, why did she go to the press?  Why is she talking to any reporter she can, doing interviews, giving sound bites? She simply wants to capitalize on someone else's disgrace.  It's schadenfreude.

But going back to the main issue here.  His sexual proclivities and exploits have no influence on his ability to be a congressman.  Like I mentioned in my last post, everyone is entitled to a private life and if his wife has a problem with it, she'll take care of it however she sees fit.  It's not for the media or the public to judge him for his private actions.  Stay the hell out of it. Does the man do his job?  Does he do it satisfactorily?  Then that's all the public needs to know and that should be the end of it.