The easy thing to do with this post is to blame the actions in regard to this case simply on “politics in America.” As the case involves the supposedly ultra-conservative Central Mississippi Tea Party versus the Republican Party, my comments could be construed as an endorsement for Democrats everywhere. It is not. For next week, I can guarantee you; I could easily come up with a bone-headed example from the other side of the aisle. In fact, for the rest of this post I 
will not mention specific names or parties other than to say, look up a recent scandal involving the photographing of the ailing wife a U.S. senator from Mississippi.
The set-up goes something like this: a long established U.S. senator was running for re-election in his party’s primary. There were, as the process goes, people who wanted to put up their candidate to run against the incumbent. This is all well and good; competition is the heart and soul of our election process.
The rival candidate’s backers must have burned the midnight oil late into the night to come up with the following doozy; they would accuse the senator of having an affair. However, they needed a big gimmick; because, let’s face it; affairs are not unusual for politicians. The gimmick they thought they needed was in the form of the senator’s wife who suffers from dementia. She has been in care for the past 13 years; she is unable to speak and she is, as are many patients in nursing care, kept clean and safe but not well-coiffed or handsomely dressed. The idea was to use images of this poor dear as a foil to fabricated rumors of indiscretions.
The blogger for the senator’s rival and the rival’s party was arrested last week as he tried to gain access to the nursing care facility for the third time in order to photograph the senator’s wife. His arrest led to the arrest of an attorney, a school teacher and an elderly party backer who all knew of the plan as well. Among the charges were:
“Conspiracy involving the exploitation of a vulnerable person and the photographing or filming of a person without permission where there is an expectation of privacy.”
Where does this lead?
The senator is not having an affair. He is just living his public life and his private life. I can’t vouch for his political record – and in fact, it’s not germane to the discussion. His private life is undoubtedly tough. Have you ever experienced seeing seen a person you deeply love waste away from dementia? There is nothing pretty or noble or easy about it.
The blogger who is all of 28 years old, and who possibly likened his photographic mission to a fun college prank, may not understand that life is not always a digital game or Reality TV. I will allow him, ever so carefully, that his lack of ethics is due to his personal lack of character and relatively young age. It is a thin allowance, I know. Men and women much younger are living mature and important lives.
What of the lawyer who was arrested? Certainly he must know wrong from right. In what manner of speaking or thinking did he think it was acceptable to photograph a woman in dementia to smear her husband? Should we exploit cancer as well? How about heart disease or a miscarriage?
What about the teacher who was in on this? I sit here and ask myself if this is the kind of person who I would want to teach my children – or yours? It is difficult to think of this teacher as teaching right from wrong.
I get it – and I don’t
Yes, people in politics can be very passionate and I know it can be a dirty game where most anything goes. However are there ethical limits? I believe there are. I also believe that deep down most reasonable people – whether Democrat, Republican or any other political orientation, know where those limits start.
Limits should at least encompass a sense of ethical behavior. I strongly believe that ethics training should be instituted at national, regional and local political levels. It should be required of every candidate and every political “machine.”
I am not naive to the fact that the training “may roll off of backs,” but we must at least try. To not try, is to invite more of this type of behavior where political discourse includes someone photographing the husband of a politician who may be stricken with Alzheimer’s or the taping the child of another politician who may be fighting a terminal disease.
I believe that “Left” or “Right,” most Americans favor limits. Ethical training can clearly aid in defining those limits.
