Nicely put.

An additional thought: we often regard the political assassination of inconvenient public voices as a chilling sign of tyranny when we hear about it in, say, Russia — but a "kooky conspiracy theory" when we hear someone suggest that it's happening in our own country.

That is practically the definition of chauvinism — a far more corrosive sin than hypocrisy.

the part of spitzer's actions that i find

offensive are not in any moral realm, but simply

that he was so stupid as to put himself in the position

to be blackmailed so easily had the wrong people

been able to attain information about his activities.

anybody in their right mind has to admit it's flat

out idiotic of him to do what he was doing, especially

since he's intimately familiar with how organized

crime has a huge presence in the porn/escorting

underworlds.

let's assume that he was patronizing this agency

while he was AG in NY. from the news reports lately

it sounds like that's a forgone conclusion.

and let's assume that someone,

somewhere, had info on his behavior and decided

they could at least attempt to score some points with

people he was prosecuting on wall street by handing

over the information, or letting spitzer at least

know that they could be handed the information.

and we don't even know at this point if there was a

blackmail attempt on him that failed, and thus produced

this news coming out. you'd have to assume that bit of

information would coincide with the release of everything

else, but stranger things have definitely happened.

the only conclusion i can really come to is that

either he had a severe case of self-entitlement, or

a severe case of sexual addiction.

in either case, it's too much for me to handle, and

it's definitely not the type of stuff that is befitting

of someone representing our party in the future.

What bothers me most about this situation is not Spitzer's alleged misconduct. It's that the conversation about it will focus entirely on "schadenfreude festivals" and ad hominem attacks. It's that Spitzer's work will be decried as somehow tainted. It's that we are mired in a cult of celebrity to such a great extent that the message has indeed become the medium (yeah yeah). It's that it gives greed-motivated business yet another excuse to roll its eyes when "we" attempt to advance conversations about business ethics. It's that it feeds the attitude that only perfect people can make ethical claims or critiques, or can enforce laws, or can pass judgment for social benefit. It's that Wall Street is expected to rejoice (and likely there will be a great deal of this)--thereby reinforcing the notion that good business shouldn't be restrained. It's that when professors show their business students videos about the Citibank scandal, those students will only want to talk about how Spitzer liked it, and with whom, and in what ways.

It is possible to be a rank hypocrite and still make good arguments and good policies--and even be justified in enforcing those policies (of course, this doesn't place them *above* those policies). Any news reader or pundit who mentions this in the coming weeks gets one gold star...ok, maybe two.

I'm not sure if I have ever heard of any group in which every single member had identical opinions before..

I'm really fascinated to find out that feminists are of one monolithic mind on the subject of prostitution.

> Under which clause of the Constitution is it a federal crime if a certain weed happens to be growing on my property? Can you answer it without looking it up?

Are you referring to Salvia divinorum? A traditional herb of Mexico shamans with a mild, no-apparent-side-effects, hallucinagenic quality? Totally legal in most states but I many would take issue with calling it a "weed".

Or are you referring to the very benign Cannabis (which grew like a friggin' weed all over one of my uncle's farm, and all of it natural, non-cultured, and on its own? THAT is the one to which you refer, I'll bet.

Can be used to make textiles too.

We are all hypocrites decrying of course, the hypocrisy in others. That is, after all what hypocrites do. Hypocrisy is not a good reason to impeach someone, but it's a good reason to complain about it, because again, that is what hypocrites do.

It's still not a national issue, hell it's barely a NYS issue for all the ill will Spitzer managed to collect over the years. But like all screaming populists claiming to fight The Man, when our molten gods turn out to be weak we hate them more than the enemies we elected them to kill in the first place. See? We're hypocrites.

And the folks who punt and say "Eh? Just legalize everything!" are just avoiding the hard choices that everyone else will have to make. For example, should crackheads be allowed to be prostitutes to pay for their drugs?

http://action.web.ca/home/catw/readingroom.shtml?sh_itm=46413d9acb7e9322a28f1df36d75637c&AA_EX_Session=7b564e7079fd07b422eaf40b438519f0

"The philosophy that prostitution is a human right has been advanced, in international forums such as Beijing, by drawing distinctions between forced and free, adult and child, third world and first world prostitution, and between prostitution and trafficking (2). These distinctions are then used to make some forms of prostitution acceptable and legitimate, revising the harm that is done to women in prostitution into a consenting act and excluding prostitution from the category of violence against women. The sex industry thrives on this language and these distinctions.

When distinctions are made between forced and free prostitution, for example, it becomes almost insurmountable for many, if not most, women in prostitution to prove that they have been forced."

...Sometimes, adults make choices for their own lives that other adults perceive to be bad choices. When that happens, the adults who know better have the right to step in, pass laws to restrict the bad choices, and even make the bad choices criminal -- all for the good of the adults who don't know what's good for them. ... (Glenn G.)

Best post of your blogging career, and I have read every one as far as I know. (here and the old UT) Evey word was a gem; every sentence without need for improvement.

However, the above quote was the best because American "liberals" as well as "conservatives" think the same of countries as well. If a country chooses a "bad" leader, we need to 'help' them out with a CIA black opp or an invasion. Yes, can't let anyone anywhere alone.

"Live and let live"; a phrase from a long ago era.