Politics in the toilet

Ethics is tricky business. Postmodern Americans struggle with ethical questions. People with conservative ethics, moralists or uninversal ethicists, are denounced as narrow-minded or intolerant. Liberal ethicists, relativists, are viewed as immoral weaklings. In the end the old question of whose right and whose wrong seems to go unanswered. Is nobody right if everybody's wrong? Is anyone right? What is right or wrong? Is it wrong to harm a neighbor? What about war then? Is there such a thing as just war? Are we fighting in one? Is sexuality private or public? Who's sexuality is right? Can one's sexuality be wrong? Can one's gender be wrong? What is the basis for sexual identity and practice? Is it nature or nurture or both? Does anyone know? Is TV good, bad, indifferent? What about technology in general? Does technology that makes a phone a gps, a tv, a dvd player, and an email/internet device really necessary? What if the genius of Steve Jobs went to work to find better ways to fuel vehicles or get clean water to remote African villages or get malaria vaccines to dying children? What if the quality of everyone's life was more important than the next $600.00 gadget?
And then we have the case of the Senator from Idaho caught making odd gestures in a bathroom stall. He pleads guilty to some minor indecency charges, and later regrets the plea. He is being denounced as a sexual criminal and his career may be over. We've seen this story before, haven't we? Middle age white professional with sexual issues of some kind? Happily married with kids. And a salary. And responsibilities to others.
Why do we welcome the sexual exploits of our celebrity entertainers; but deplore the sexual lives of political leaders? Why are moral standards applied differently to different people?
Might it have something to do with a lack of wisdom about the human condition? Are we so unreflective as a human comunity that we cannot understand why we do what we do?
I think the best example of human reflection is in Paul's letter to the Romans in the 7th chapter. he writes, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do." Paul has stumbled on the mystery of the human condition. And he is honest. he doesn't get himself. What is wrong with me? I know the difference and choose to ignore my own mind. I believe that smokers must suspend better, healthier judgment everytime they light up. We know cancer is caused by smoking. Nobody wants to get lung cancer or give it to a loved one. The risk is highly reduced if you quit. So why do people smoke? I don;t understand. All of us are tempted. The world is full of temptation. Why is health less tempting than the ting that cuold kill us, even though it might feel good. Humans.
We are good but not so good. We are lovers who crave the love of others, but can hate with passion. We demand much from life and give little of our own away to improve the lives of others. We are sexual but long to be spiritual. If secular modernity hadn't abandoned the concept of sin as a category, we might be okay. I appreciate the apologetic work of Paul Tillich whose second volume Systematics delves into human nature. Brokenness is the category he uses to describe the state we are in. Maybe if we all got humble enough to know that all of us are in the toilet, then we'd have a new starting ground for conversation. Does a Senator need loving community or God less than Britney Spears. And why do we care if she "rehabs" but hope he goes to hell? is Michael Vick news? ONly because he is a celebrity. Reprehensible behavior knows no bounds. Nor does God's reconciling grace.