The politics of morality

Every time another public-office sex scandal breaks, it’s the same tired old political fight. If it’s a Democrat, the Republicans demand that the sinner’s head rolls, and the Democrats call the Republicans partisan hypocrites. If it’s a Republican, the Democrats demand that the hypocrite’s head rolls, and the Republicans call the Democrats partisan opportunists.

So, who’s right in this political pickle and moral morass?

First, a warning. This post may contain generalisations. Generalisations are statements about groups that are often, but not always, true for individuals. Not all Republicans are moral conservatives, and not all moral conservatives are Republican. Likewise, not all Democrats are liberals, and not all liberals are Democrats. In my own case, as a classical liberal I largely share the modern liberal’s principles on morality. I believe in individual liberty. Within the boundaries of laws that protect such liberty, I think private behaviour is no business of the state, nor of or the public. There are exceptions, such as in cases of public officials breaking laws they swore to uphold, or exposing their offices to risks such as blackmail, but in general, what Paul does with his Peter is none of my concern.

Now, what about the liberal charge of conservative hypocrisy over morality?

The liberal left claims to be, well, liberal. It claims to tolerate just about anything in terms of private behaviour. Rightly, in my view, liberals say it’s none of the government’s or public’s business what goes on behind closed doors.

On the other side is the self-styled “moral majority”, who define morality in rather more narrow terms. They claim moral behaviour in private defines a person’s character, and therefore it is a prerequisite for public office.

Now when someone gets caught with his pants down the moral conservative simply says, “resign”. This is perfectly consistent with the conservative’s political position. With the liberal left it’s different, however. Their reaction depends not on their own objective principles, but on the subjective principles of the culprit. When a Democrat (like Bill Clinton) gets caught with his Peter where it doesn’t belong, they say it’s just a bit of hanky-panky and it’s not that serious. But when a Republican gets caught with his pants down, they’re all over it like a rash, if you’ll excuse the image. That’s when they accuse Republicans of hypocrisy.

But the Republicans aren’t being hypocritical at all. If you call something a sin, that doesn’t make you a hypocrite if you sin. It makes you a sinner. Declaring that you expect moral behaviour in yourself and others doesn’t make you an infallible saint. Frowning on moral failings doesn’t make you immune from those failings. Moral conservatives would be hypocrites if they didn’t apply their own standards of behaviour to their own politicians. But they do. They’re being perfectly consistent: they expect morality, and punish immorality.

By contrast, the supposedly liberal left are being hypocritical by applying different standards to different people. They would like everyone to apply their own liberal standards to their own people, but then apply standards they don’t even agree with to others. Why was Larry Craig, the Congressman with the suspiciously wide stance, excoriated by Democrats? Because Republicans consider what he did wrong, the Democrats hold his behaviour up as evidence of hypocrisy. Cue shrill schadenfreude. But those Democrats would be wrong. Craig’s actions were not evidence of conservative hypocrisy. He wasn’t above the standards he espouses. The moral conservatives didn’t let him get away with it because he’s Republican. He resigned, and that’s perfectly consistent with the morals he claims to uphold. It was their own reaction that was hypocritical. Shouldn’t liberals be defending his moral right to have anonymous sex with uniformed fellows in toilet stalls? Shouldn’t they apply their own standards of privacy and moral choice to everyone? Instead, he got mobbed for reasons of partisan hypocrisy.

On Eliot Spitzer, for example, a real liberal — whether classical or leftwing — would say what he does with his Peter is his own business, but he did break the law in the state of which he was governor, and he did lay his office wide open to blackmail. So he should resign on those grounds, as opposed to moral grounds. A moral conservative would be perfectly consistent by saying the filthy sinner must burn. That some moral conservatives don’t live up to their own standards does not make this position hypocritical.

Liberals would have a lot more credibility if they didn’t yell “hypocrisy” every time a moral conservative gets caught in an immoral position. Because by doing so, they betray their own hypocrisy instead.