Comments on: Lust Claims Another Career

By: John Foust

John Foust — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:58:25 +0000

Careful – I think you’re inadvertently exciting and enticing the demographic that really likes it when straight, uptight, guilty-feeling College Republican boys talk about sex.

By: ZC

ZC — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:01:44 +0000

Zach W,

Could you please cite one time where Judge Kozinski rails against immorality? I can totally understand this charge with Spitzer, but not Kozinski.

By: Zach W.

Zach W. — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:51:12 +0000

Daniel, we all may “stumble and fall” from time to time, but not all of us rail against immorality while at the same time engaging in the same kind of behavior we’re railing against.

He’s a hypocrite, and I hope his career is over.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:49:08 +0000

First off, let’s make clear that I’m not defending Kozinski. I’m not saying he should or shouldn’t resign, or even that he should or shouldn’t remove himself from the obscenity trial. Those are interesting questions, but not ones that I concern myself with here. I do note, however, that at least one prominent conservative organization has called on the judge to resign (here).
I note also that I did not get up on Eliot Spitzer just as I did not comment on Richard Vitter. If I had commented, it would be along the lines outlined in my comment point 3 above – namely, we should be careful with the hypocrite label, because we all stumble and fall at times.
This post was prompted by the interesting juxtaposition of Richard Land’s comments and the Kozinski story both crossing my RSS reader the same day. Read nothing more into it than another in a series of posts on this blog for our society to get serious about creating a culture conducive to virtue.

By: richard martin

richard martin — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:35:29 +0000

Daniel, I have no problem with a person making a mistake and you defending them. But ask yourself this: If this was a liberal thinker or even a Democrat, would I choose these words to describe what I thought of the matter? I am willing to bet a lot of money you would be all over a liberal or Democrat that had done the same thing. You would accuse them of threatening the moral fabric of society. You would demand immediate action to punish the liberal or Democrat and you would do this without realizing the total hypocrisy of your words. Now, what do you say to that?

By: ZC

ZC — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:04:44 +0000

Here’s a good (but somewhat biased) summary of the whole story:

http://volokh.com/posts/1213378597.shtml

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:38:06 +0000

1. The newspaper headlines characterized it all as porn. Perhaps it is closer to dirty old uncle stuff – the Judge characterized his motive as finding it “funny.” Okay. I wonder how Mrs. K. would characterize it.

2. He probably won’t have to resign, there aren’t grounds for impeachment, we’ll see if anything comes of it, but you’re right, probably not. But from now on, this will always be out there, part of his Wikipedia bio from now into eternity.

3. Every person struggles and stumbles. Does that mean that every person should give up both the corporate and the personal fight for virtue? Absolutely not. If everyone who had ever sinned was barred from speaking on public policy issues from a moral perspective…

4. Richard Land is the public policy voice of the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. He has degrees from Princeton and Oxford.

5. I don’t disagree that many men have dirty picture stashes. We’ve all done, and do, and will do, things we’re not proud of (see Romans 7:15-25). I do disagree that they’re no worse off for it.