General Discussion
Showing Original Post only (View all)Let's be real: EVERY president and most senators and MOCs have done things in office we can condemn [View all]
Every single president in modern times has pursued, advanced and implemented policies that we find abhorent. All of them have knowingly taken actions that foreseeably resulted in the deaths of innocent people. All of them have given orders to kill people (for example, Obama's orders to kill bin Laden and the Somali pirates - and those are just ones we know about). All of them have made decisions that balanced the good of some against the good of others.
By the same token, virtually every senator and Member of Congress has voted for and supported actions and policies that were arguably immoral - war resolutions, arms sales, etc.
So, if we feel morally compelled to trash George H.W. Bush on the day he died because we believe he engaged in immoral behavior in public office, we should be prepared to condemn every single other public official for their immorality, including those we love and support, such as President Obama, Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, Joe Biden, etc. - and extend that condemnation to ourselves for endorsing and electing them.
Or, we can recognize that governing - like life itself - is extraordinarily complicated and doesn't always lend itself to cut-and-dried, black-and-white moral judgments.