What's more, he told us how we are supposed to forgive him.
First, genuine repentance - a determination to change and to repair
breaches of my own making. I have repented.
Not for him to decide. Further, what repair? Perhaps
a default judgement in the civil case, reimbursement for
all the hundreds of thousands of personal monies spent
on defending him by his aides.
Second, what my bible calls a ''broken spirit''; an understanding that
I must have God's help to be the person that I want to be;
a willingness to give the very forgiveness I seek; a renunciation
of the pride and the anger which cloud judgment, lead people
to excuse and compare and to blame and complain.
Now what does this all mean? His lawyers are mounting a
vigorous defense using all available appropriate arguments.
Not quite the 'broken spirit'.
One of the reasons cited by many why the crimes of perjury et. al
should be excused is that Clinton was engaged in noble lie. The
ends far justified the greater good and that intermediate prejudices
would cloud the 'true path'. Interestingly enough, I had re-read
Sissela Bok's "Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life" last
year well before the current scandal broke. In Bok's book, 3 classes of
lies are founded in excusal. Crisis, where the overwhelming harm can
only be averted through the deceipt; complete harmlessness and
triviality to the point where it seems absurd whither to quibble about
whether a lie has been told; duty to particular individuals (or
institutions) to protect their secrets. Over time, all of these can be
subverted where future dubiousness far outweight the inital concerns.
Bok states that "when these three exapnding streams flow together and
mingle with yet another - ad desire to advnce the public good - they
form the most dangerous body of deceit of all.
I watched Titanic the other night. I couldn't help but think that
it truly was the end of a gilded age, where man thought industrial
bravado could conquer all forces of nature. Somehow I hope that we
are at a similar turning point. It is my hope that with the WWW
making so much information available to the common citizenry, that
the citizenry can then be trusted with making the decisions about
their government. Too often, decisions in government are
monochromated to present to an uninformed public. We are constantly
lied to because as a group, we can't be trusted with the inner
workings of government, nor the empowerment to make societal
decisions. I for one am a firm believe in the sunshine laws.
I think that the averagie citizen has every right to know how
their government works. I am sick of all the lies and hyprocrisy.
Everyone knows politicians lie. It's become so perverted that
we have become desensitized to the lying and accept it as a
fact of life. Thinking more on the subject of an informed citizenry,
I suppose that only 3% of the US population will read the Starr
report cover to cover. Out of that, probably only 3% will not
be in government service or the news media. I think when the
report comes out, I will read it cover to cover and determine
for myself if the facts, crimes, and conclusions warrant impeachment.
Thus ends my morning rant...
Greg
http://thomas.loc.gov/ICreport/
http://www.house.gov/icreport
http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/icreport
http://www.house.gov/judiciary/