First Principles

In all the commentary on the John Ensign adultery debacle, there’s a tremendous lack of common sense or honesty, replaced instead by the kind of tribalism sourced from the same “logic” that makes Vikings fans think Brett Favre actually sucks (unless he decides to play for the Vikings).

It’s understandable.  Conservatives want to rally around their guy, liberals want to cut him off at the knees.  But there is no principle in mere team loyalty, and this (as with so many things) presents an opportunity to do a gut check on what our principles really are, what they should be, and the imperfections we’re willing to accept.

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First, a rant.

How you be so frickin’ stupid?!?  DAMNIT!  You’re a US Senator in a senior leadership position, in a party sadly bereft of effective leaders.  You’re a target, and you’ve seen first hand the viciousness of the haters on the left who don’t just seek to win elections, but rather seek to utterly, completely, and personally destroy conservatives and their families who oppose them.  See Palin, Sarah.

Everything you’ve ever claimed to stand for is now made more difficult to achieve or preserve.  It’s not limited to social conservatism, either.  As your popularity wanes as a result of this, so does your power.  And that means your abilities and opportunities to halt tax increases, massive federal tromping on the sovereignty of the States, the growing image of us as weak to our nuclear armed enemies abroad, and the socialization of the economy all diminishes substantially.  With only 40 GOP Senators, we can’t afford an ounce of diminished power!!!

And really?  REALLY?  Is it that hard to stay faithful to your wife, especially after you’ve made it a centerpiece of your political identity?  I get that you were separated, and that the temptations of DC are profound.  But did it have to be your friend’s wife, who wasn’t separated?

One of the things that social conservatives understand is that the broader culture matters to our own familial stability and happiness, because we look to other people in our community for an example when times are tough.  If everyone else is getting divorced at the drop of a hat, that becomes that much more tempting.  If people are faithful to each other in our neighborhood, we ourselves are less likely to stray.  How many young families did you personally put at risk through your example?

And if your wife and your friend can’t trust you, can we?  Can anyone?  Will it happen again?  If you were a junior enlisted military member with a security clearance, you’d be stripped of it for this, and possibly booted from the service altogether.  Why should you be held to a lower standard than that?

Sure, people make mistakes.  But no one put a gun to your head to to run for the Senate.  You yourself have spoken of higher standards for those in your position, and you’re right.  By speaking out so strongly and so… righteously in favor of traditional marriage, and condemning your colleagues who have strayed so absolutely, you have put yourself to an even higher standard than just your average, run-of-the-mill Senator.

So don’t ask me to do an embarrassingly, transparently, and cravenly partisan, “Gosh I’m disappointed, but gee, isn’t he a great guy at the end of the day?  Yay!  All’s forgiven!” like Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review, who couldn’t get through her second sentence before turning, “bad behavior” into the epitome of instant redemption.

It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than that.

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On the other hand, Lopez’ piece is not without some good points, ones I’ve considered over the last week as well.  This is a problem, and I’m angry about it.  But going the opposite extreme of Lopez, to Chuck Muth’s zero defect mentality, for example, might be worse.  It certainly isn’t any more helpful.  Indeed – it sets up perfection as the only acceptable standard, which is ironically what made Ensign’s affair particularly explosive.  Mandating unattainable goals for ourselves and our party leaders is a guarantee of failure.

None of us are perfect.  We will all make mistakes, some of them profound.  How we deal with those mistakes can often tell us more about our characters than the mistakes themselves.

By all accounts, Ensign told his wife about the affair, and broke it off when they reconciled.  He was separated from his wife at the time, which doesn’t necessarily make it OK (although I have a lot more sympathy that way), but it definitely changes the equation.  When it became clear that the affair would be used to extort money or worse, he did not further his sin by being complicit in a cover-up.

When he apologized, it did not come after months of denial.  There was no looking into a camera with feigned righteous indignation punctuated by a finger waggle.  He called it what it was, acknowledged the harm to his family as directly as could be done, and then resigned his leadership post the next day.  He didn’t try to justify it.  He didn’t blame Ken Starr, or a vast left wing conspiracy.  He didn’t pimp his wife out to go lie for him on the morning talk shows, as Hillary Clinton did right before her husband’s admission.

It took guts to come clean in the way that he did.

That doesn’t fix things.  It doesn’t mitigate the very real damage he did to a whole array of issues I care about.  But it says a lot more about Senator Ensign than some other people who’ve found themselves thinking with the wrong brain.

And that ain’t nuthin’.

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If we restrict ourselves to only perfect politicians, we’re going to be in for a much longer time in the wilderness than I thought.  There’s been a shortage of perfect people on this planet for about 2,000 years, depending on who you talk to, and the next perfect politician I meet will be the first.  Let’s not forget who the first President who had ever been divorced was.

And really, the reason limited government is necessary to protect individual liberty is, among other things, because government attracts the corrupt and tends to corrupt those who arrive with the sincere intent to honorably serve.  This kind of crap is a true bi-partisan flaw, and will stop bedeviling us about the day the sun starts rising in the west.

Actually, I think the sun may rise in the west much sooner.

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A few other thoughts:

The Foolish Reaction of the Left

Does anyone really think that the country would be a better place if we all suddenly started running around cheating on our spouses, or if marriage went away entirely?  Does anyone really want to defend adultery as a good thing?  Of course not.

And since adultery is a bad thing, doesn’t it stand to reason that fidelity is a good thing?  Are we really better off if no one stands up to say that people should honor their marriage vows?  I think not.  So should we really limit it to those who are without sin?

Just because a thief tells his child not to steal doesn’t mean stealing is suddenly OK.  (It makes it hard for the kid to reconcile, and makes him more likely to be a thief himself.  But that’s a different issue.)  Should recovering alcoholics be banned from speaking out against excessive drinking or DUIs?  (If they were, AA wouldn’t work nearly so well.  Like, at all.)

Of course not.  The fact that we are all sinners doesn’t mean we should never speak out against sin.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

But to read the lefty comments on national news sites about the whole thing, Ensign’s problem wasn’t that he cheated on his wife, it’s that he had spoken out against infidelity before he did it.  Apparently, as long as you don’t condemn adultery, you can have sex with whomever you want, and it’s OK.

I think the next time I’m in court, I’ll try out that defense for a client.  “It’s OK, judge – he never publicly condemned trafficking meth, so he’s not a hypocrite.  In fact, he totally told his kids that he wouldn’t judge them if they made that lifestyle choice.  Really, judge – you should commend this man for his bravery and lack of hypocrisy!”

Speaking of Hypocrisy…

Falling short of our ideals is not necessarily – or even usually – hypocrisy.  It’s just being human, and therefore imperfect, and that’s a condition we all live with to some degree or another.

But even where such failings do amount to hypocrisy, that doesn’t change the weight of the ideals the hypocrite has betrayed.  Indeed – it is a testament to the power and importance of those ideals that we feel that sense of betrayal upon learning of something like this from a supposed champion of those principles.

But if the left must insist on this line of attack, then I must insist on consistency.  That’s all I ask.  It means:

• Obama must never again complain about the debt he inherited, since he was complicit in it by voting for it.  Likewise, those who voted for Obama have renounced all claim to complain about that debt in any way, even if it gets a million times bigger under a subsequent president they didn’t vote for.
• People who advoctate open borders in defiance of the law must never complain about any other breach of the law from the government – including wiretapping, torture, etc.
• No Democrat who voted for Bill Clinton can complain about the Defense of Marriage Act, in perpetuity.
• If you’ve ever told a dirty, racist, or sexist joke in your life, or chuckled at one, you must forever accept and embrace bigotry wherever you find it – or at the very least, keep your mouth shut when you see it.
• If you’ve ever driven a car when you didn’t absolutely, no kidding, have to, you may never speak of global warming again.

See how it works?  See how silly it all is?  Ironically, if you don’t comply with my above demands and still beat the “hypocrite” drum, that actually makes you a hypocrite.  (Although if the left could comply with of of this, it would be worth all of their carping about Ensign.)

Of course it’ll never happen.  It’s almost as if their “outrage” about hypocrisy is all about electoral advantage instead of principle…  Hmmm….

Gay Marriage

This is still an issue I struggle with, and I don’t really want to explore it here and hijack my own already probably too-long post.  But the more family values politician get caught doing this type of thing, and the more they’re forgiven by their constituents, the more tenuous the argument against allowing gay marriage becomes.  I believe marriage is a critical institution for the stability of society, should not be entered into (or dissolved) lightly or casually, and is a legal expression of the importance of fidelity.  If gay couples want to do that, and have the open support of a community who will, through peer pressure, dissuade them from cheating or doing other bad things, is that worse for society?  Might gay marriage strengthen the institution?

I honestly don’t know the answer to that, which is why I’m glad we have 50 states to experiment around with it.  But if Ensign represents the sanctity of marriage, maybe that argument is already over.  Again – if this is really something he cared about, if it was really the culture destroyer some allege, why would he risk eliminating his ability to be an effective voice against it for such paltry and fleeting gain?

Republican Sanctimony

Traditional American cultural values are important, and they deserve defending.  The nuclear family led by the original parents is the best way to raise a child, and anyone who says that things are just as good (just different!) in a “non-traditional” family with single parents, or joint physical custody, or “blended” families (or at least that it’s not, on account of those things, any worse) is just wrong.  I earnestly believe this, as do most conservatives.  We are right to treat the issue with seriousness.

But there is a fine line between seriousness and sanctimony.  One is helpful.  The other is harmful.

It’s easy to get unduly sanctimonious, not about this value structure itself, but about the fact that conservatives are its lone defender – even when that’s true.  But that’s the point at which we start throwing those rocks in our glass houses.  The level of righteousness is fragile and hollow indeed when one of its proponents is forced to admit his or her lack of perfection.

One of the reasons it took me so long as a teenager to realize I was a Republican was because at the time, the ultra-religious right was rising, and becoming the face of the GOP to the exclusion of the crucial core principle of individual liberty.  To them, or at least that’s the impression they left, “Conservatism” began and ended with social issues, and they were so obnoxiously pious about it.  Although the liberal caricature that they were intent on spreading theocracy is the worst kind of lie, the whole Moral Majority crowd still grated on the “leave me alone” attitude which is the key to drawing younger people to Conservatism.  Republicans must start carefully charting and exploring the critical relationship between social conservatism and liberty in general.

Again – this isn’t to say that we reject those values.  Far from it.  But defending them with a bit more (maybe a lot more) humility, as well as some compassion and yes, empathy for people who stray, will, I think, have a more lasting effect on ensuring those values survive into future generations.  We should never forget that even guys like Ronald Reagan didn’t perfectly embody those ideals (far from it, really, in a lot of ways).

We’re Americans, after all, and individuality isn’t dead in all of us!  If you want to get prideful and snotty about your religion, don’t ask me to play.  The natural reaction of an individualist is to reject even good advice when it’s wrapped in sanctimony.

When Bill Clinton was being impeached, I was against it.  It’s not that I think adultery and perjury were no big deal.  It’s because it was obvious that it was politically motivated witch hunt first, and a protection of values a distant second.  And even after the perjury (a crime I despise) when Clinton really deserved to be impeached, the downright glee with which Republicans were hounding the President turned the country away from them.  They lost all credibility with their attitude, and only served to bolster Clinton’s popularity as he was taking credit for the success of the Congress’ conservative agenda.

Is that really what we want?  Does that really forward the cause of liberty?

Why I’m Still Going To Support Ensign – Probably

As I said before, adultery doesn’t change the fact that Ensign is right – and votes right – on more of the issues I care about than not.  Well, he voted for the TARP bill, but at least stopped there.  A Democrat who replaces him will hardly care more about individual liberty, and even if they do, the “D” behind his or her name only gives more power to an extremely liberal caucus that has certainly proven their contempt for civil rights, the rule of law, and the Constitution itself.

This affair isn’t the only thing that defines John Ensign, at least not if he doesn’t let it.  The President is surely faithful to his wife, but that might be the only promise he’s actually kept (unless he made it with ridiculous double speak like “saving or creating” jobs).  Free market proponents can cheat on their wives from here to eternity, and it won’t make me stop believing in the free market.  And the most piously faithful socialist will never be enough for me to stop knowing that life, liberty, and property are natural rights that I’m willing to fight for.

Ensign’s damage control actions have kept the spark of respect alive.  With work, he can recover.  But if a serious primary challenger comes along, he or she will be that much more worth taking a chance on.  Ensign will do well to remember that he cannot take his base or his state party for granted in the next election – even without a primary, many might just stay home.

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Like me and everyone else, John Ensign isn’t perfect.  But as I often say, the perfect should never be the enemy of the good.  I don’t see the alternative being any more friendly to my individual liberty.  Until I do, my vote will stay with him.

Let’s just hope he does enough between then and now to really earn it.