We should be allowed to look down on Spitzer
Bookworm on Mar 11 2008 at 8:05 am | Filed under: Crime and punishment, Democrats
With regard to Eliot Spitzer, a defense is springing up all over the MSM and the liberal blogosphere: it’s stupid to make prostitution criminal; therefore, Spitzer shouldn’t be in trouble for paying for prostitutes. In response to this defense, I would point out that whether it should be criminal is not the issue here. The fact is that it is criminal. If Spitzer thinks prostitution should be legal, he should use his bully pulpit to change that fact legislatively. What he did was to break the law. Jonah Goldberg has also correctly grasped that there is nothing wrong with showering shame on Spitzer regardless of ones views about laws prohibiting prostitution (h/t Earl):
Intellectually I can understand the argument for legalized prostitution, even if I disagree with it. And, I can understand, even sympathize, with the view that there should be more than a rice-paper thin Japanese teahouse wall between one’s private life and public life, even for politicians.
So let me concede, for the sake of argument, that Andrew is right that the law is an ass when it comes to prostitution (though if we are going to be loyal to Dickens, shouldn’t that be “a ass”?) Let us also concede that it is something like a private matter for a married man to visit a prostitute (though obviously it isn’t private for the wife and the kids — or for the prostitute if, as in many circumstances, she’s forced into such work).
Still, to say that something is a “private matter” is not the same thing as saying something is beyond the scope of our judgment. If Tom is a drunk, it may be a private matter but that hardly means I must approve of his “lifestyle.” If one of my married friends was repeatedly visiting hookers, I might say for the sake of social peace that it’s none of my business, but I would still think much less of him. And, if he became more and more brazen — and hence more and more humiliating for the man’s wife and family — the more likely it would become that I would feel compelled to say something.
Goldberg has more in this same vein, which you will find here.
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4 Responses to “We should be allowed to look down on Spitzer”
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Book, the defense put up by Spitzer and his apologists is not surprising. In fact it is so old-hat that it is predictable and boring.
As I said below, one thing that separates Spitzer from other miscreants is that while citing the “public good” he pursued people involved in the same activities. Apparently he did not consider it a “private matter” when the shoe was on the other foot–so to speak.
One more personal observation. It has always chilled me to see white collar “criminals”, shuffling along in shackles; forced to do the perp walk before the public. Little grey haired men treated like dangerous animals in an exercise in pure and unjustified humiliation. To me this scene epitomized the arrogance of the all-powerful prosecutor. I look forward to seeing Spitzer shackled up.
When one prosecutes prostitution services- and in his office he had some choice regarding what he WOULD prosecute- one’s credibility is destroyed by using those same services. While I paid little attention to Spitzer, never having the option to vote for him, what I read gave me the impression that he was a crusader, using the law to rid the world of some evil. Heist on his own petard.
>>I read gave me the impression that he was a crusader, using the law to rid the world of some evil. Heist on his own petard.>>
I disagee. I find him simply corrupt - enforcing a law on others that he feels free to break himself. Selective enforcement is the most basic form of corrupt government.
Everyone knows my solution to corrupt bureaucrats and government officials.