Back in April 2003 I read this article in the New Yorker magazine profiling the anti-corruption ball busting (excuse the phraseology) Attorney General of the state of NY. Elliot Spitzer came up quickly building his name as as a modern day Elliot Ness of sorts. He cracked down on white collar criminals and fat corporations without fear. His legacy though will now be: The Governor of NY who got caught hiring “high end” prostitutes.

Today On Tuesday I tried to get on the Brian Lehrar show. One of the screeners asked me what I wanted to share. So I said.. “Similar to Bill Clinton (’s affair in the Oval office with Monica) this instance should be seen as a broader societal problem”. She asked if I could rephrase my question to a legal one. She said they were no longer taking calls on whether he should resign or not. So I guess what that meant is: What he did was immoral because it was illegal, not that it was immoral because it was immoral and its illegal because its immoral. I was not able to quickly reframe my question and was asked to call back. There is a discussion on the WNYC website so I’ll just link this post there.

My first reaction to the news was disappointment and secondly disgust. I was on a line in a bank and CNN was on. In his 2 minute apology he stated: “I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family” and “violates my or any sense of right and wrong”.. Its interesting that he admits not to hiring a prostitute but rather to having lost his sense of morality. The question everyone must ask themselves is where do we get our sense of morality from in the first place?

When I was doing my bachelors at St. Johns University, I took a class entitled: “Philosophy of Ethics and Morality”. Although SJU is a Catholic University the professor of that course attempted to get us to accept Homosexuality as being okay amongst other dubious things. In this course she (and the textbook) stated about 7 base philosophies which people can use to derive their morality from. Of those philosophies only one references God, that was the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. His philosophy took the Bible as an ultimate standard. In that course most students trumped arguments for this philosophy because they would always state it was impractical to follow. For example when abortion was spoken about, one student said: “…Well the bible also says not to have sex before marriage.. but we all do that!..”. When it came to Capital Punishment one student chose to be against it based on the same philosophy and stated that Jesus was turn the other cheek. I then posed to him the question: “Does turning the other cheek establish justice?”. And he answered: “No”. There you had it, another impracticality. Why am I bringing up Christianity and Philosophy while Elliot Spitzer is Jewish? Well the question of morality always comes down to not your religion, but your adherence to principles which you uphold without fail. I would go on to argue that if you do not subscribe to a lifestyle pleasing to God, your own desires will become your God and you will do anything you feel like doing.

Now what boggles my mind is how he gets caught. He was the top prosecutor in the state and went after so many corporations. He must know that in this digital age, your digital footprint is irremovable. How could he use his bank account to make payments. A simple audit from the IRS could have uncovered this. Was he that horny that not only was he paying for a 3gs-an-hour-Hookers, but makes an account on their website! Is he stupid? He shut down very illegal operations like this one before, doesn’t he realize his information can not be kept confidential for long.

When Bill Clinton was caught with Monica. Many Americans were not bothered by it. Some people say Spitzer did what many European leaders do and get away with, so why should we care. The reason why people are not shocked and offended by this kind of behavior is because they themselves find themselves caught up in immoral situations. Some say lets focus on moving America forward in order to dismiss this issue. What’s messing us up badly is sex-craze which is ruining American society.

Living in a sex-crazed society leads to more than just embarrassment for elected officials. It also leads to 1 in 4 Teen girls having STDs.

Listen to this

Moral relativism sucks.

Filed under: Social Commentary