Should A History of Smoking Crack Disqualify One From Office?

[BigK]

This guy is a piece of work.

[Suckrates]

Forget about the Crack, the guy is unbalanced and volatile and doesn't seem fit for Public office.

[TotallyOz]

I wish that we as a society would concentrate more on current issues that past doings. We have all done crazy things in the past. I know I have. I also know the OP had a wild life full of adventures and stories but his intellect would make him a fantastic congressman. That was not a dig at you Lucky. I am just saying that what you do in your life, in your home, in your bed is your own business and should not be related to public office at all IMHO.

I am tired of people saying, "Oh, he smoked weed when he was in high school and should not be elected." Or, "he got a blow job from a transsexual and thus not qualified to lead us." Horseshit.

Would I have a problem if this guy did crack today? Well, I guess I am a hypocrite there and would say I would not vote for him. But, a few years back would not matter to me in the least.

I guess what I am saying is that my life as a former pimp should not prohibit me from running for the a seat in the New York elections in 2016. I am looking for signatures and 20,000,000 to run the campaign. And, if Lookin can organize my social media part with his witty pics and posts, I know I'd have a shot at winning. But, does being a former pimp exclude me?

[Lucky]

Huh? I merely asked the question that was flying around Toronto. Eat your curry, Oz. watch out for the MSG!

[TotallyOz]

Huh? I merely asked the question that was flying around Toronto. Eat your curry, Oz. watch out for the MSG!

Does that mean I don't have your support for the NY Congressional seat I am considering?

[Lucky]

Yes, of course you do. I am not sure if you are following the story closely. Much of the mayor's bad behavior has happened while he is in office-drug buying, crack smoking, drunken behavior, and general crudeness.

What a person has done in his past is just one factor to be considered in determining his or her qualifications. Most of us here would find it hard to get elected to anything, including me.

[TotallyOz]

What a person has done in his past is just one factor to be considered in determining his or her qualifications. Most of us here would find it hard to get elected to anything, including me.

I totally agree with you and everything you said. I think this guy is a pig for doing what he has been doing IN office.

What I hate about politics is that people let little past incidents that they consider immoral to prohibit someone from SERVING. It sickens me. I don't give a rats ass that Bill got a bj in office. Or, that Obama smoked weed when he was younger. But, many will still hold both against them and some will not vote for Hillary based on Bill getting head. Fucked up to the core IMHO.

I hate drugs. I hate Meth. I have ended most of my relationships based on this. But, drugs in the past I can easily forgive or if not, I would have no Christmas dinner with my family.

[AdamSmith]

What I hate about politics is that people let little past incidents that they consider immoral to prohibit someone from SERVING.

Agree completely. But it has gotten much better than in the past, and continues to. Gary Hart felt he had to withdraw from the 1988 pres campaign over getting caught with whatshername on the boat, yet by the '92 campaign, Clinton could confess to womanizing -- serial at that, pretty clearly -- and survive. And a majority didn't care about Monica even though her blowjobs were given in the presidential loo right outside the Oval Office. Voters didn't care about George W.'s past drinking nor the drug stuff that came to light during his campaign. Nor did Obama's writing about using weed when younger make any blip at all. Sanford of SC won election to Congress despite his Argentinian affair while governor and subsequent divorce. Polls showed voters forgave Weiner his first round of sexting, only getting fed up when it emerged he had kept on doing it even after getting caught and saying, Whoops silly me well I've stopped that now.

So, progress of a sort.

[Lucky]

Recently I finished a smashing book by R. J. Ellory, the famed author of the novel A Quiet Belief in Angels. This one is called A Dark and Broken Heart and is essentially about a man so corrupt, both legally and in his heart, that there seems to be no possibility of redemption for him. Nevertheless, as the father of four children, he hopes, if only for them, that he can one day reach redemption for his evil deeds. The novel is the story of his efforts, and it is indeed a dark story.

In my work as an attorney, I dealt with many people who had done wrong and wanted to make it right. Yet society seemed to lay so many obstacles in their path. It was as if one bad act changed the nature of your life and society's definition of you, and determined the course of what would be made available to you both publicly and privately. You were now branded a criminal, and evading that title was a mind-numbing task. Too many found it easier to just accept the title and live that life.

So, when Totally Oz says he doesn't want to focus on a person's past, I think I do know of where he speaks. And even if speaks not for himself, he raises an interesting point- that we won't let people leave their past behind. This happens in every day life, and it happens most publicly with politicians. There has been some improvement in my lifetime. In many parts of the county, divorce is no longer an automatic bar to public office.Just like gays have had to whittle away at opposition to their rights, so do those with a "past" have to whittle away at both society's bias as well as the bias of individuals who they want to hold important places in their lives. As gays, we can identify with them in many ways, until their past behavior reaches the tips of our own bias, and then we too draw the doors closed on them.

I am not talking here of people with serious deviate behaviors, like killing, rape, and other offenses that hurt or even ruin others lives. I am talking about an otherwise "behaved" individual who has a background that makes it difficult for him to advance his life even though he or she has left that behavior behind and now attempts redemption in the eyes of his or her friends and family, and society as a whole.

We get to face our own biases when voting for public office, but more often in our private lives when we decide whether or not a person's past bars him from participation in our own everyday lives.

[AdamSmith]

Ford 'offered $5k and a car' in exchange for crack video

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/toronto-mayor-rob-ford-video

[RA1]

Oh, if we could only find folks to SERVE and not TAKE.

Best regards,

RA1