Our community’s ability to look at things with a balanced perspective seems difficult these days. Who in town remembers the mightier than though editorials on April 24, 2018? Or on April 27th? The one on May 2nd? All of them called out a person for “personally attacking” a state representative due to their position on a political issue. Is the shock, politically motivated? I don’t know the answer to that question. Another question to possibly consider would be, is the meek, excuse-making and silence on the other side also politically motivated? It all reeks of petty-politics.
Where are those same people now calling upon the failed candidate of the 151st State House district to apologize? Or to bring them to task with the same moral outrage as they did the others? Either there is a standard, and all agree it is good and are subject to it; or it is not real. Regardless of gender, race or creed, either an action is wrong or it is right. There is the Golden Rule which is universal or it is just a mere fraud advantageously used as a political weapon and therefore void of true value and meaning.
It is agreed that emotions should not hamper the better angels of our nature – that those particular human short-comings should never be excusable on either side of the political spectrum (whether if anonymous, angry letters; pipe bombs sent via the USPS or a man shooting at Congressmen playing baseball while shouting, “healthcare for all!”).
It is also agreed that if a community is to preach and uphold a particular standard, that when it is violated, by any member of the community, that standard be held to the same level as it has been previously to all persons. Should the failed candidate resign? I do not know the answer to that question. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere within the next RTM election cycle. Vote your conscience and vote it often.
Forcing an elected person out of office for saying silly, childish and immature things may not be a valid reason to force them from office, though that seems to be the argument from one political party against the highest office on the national level.
And yet the deafening silence and weak, whimpering excuses from the one continually moral grandstanding side begs a conclusion. Either there is a moral standard of conduct that everyone adheres to, and if they fail to live up to that standard should be held accountable like those who have been brought to task before – or nothing matters because there is no standard at all which makes this failed candidate, their supporters and friends possibly nothing more than nincompoops. Is that the right thing to say? I don’t know, is there a universal standard or is there not?
The point is this, if the one side actually believed in their moral standard, the failed candidate would not have said what they did. That is the source of the outrage – one group consistently spending so much time morally calling out the “failure in character” on the other side, and then at a critical moment to demonstrate their leadership, that very same side showed their own lack of regard for that very standard. That is frustrating in the very least; to a fair and just person, outrageous.
The failed candidate showed their true colors that night, in light of that, remember the future RTM vote. And a word of caution to the those who fell into the other side’s trap of grandstanding. The good old, moderate Yankee party is and should always be better than that.
As elected officials you all are about the People’s business, so move on and go get about it.
This day 113 years ago suddenly died an eminent man, deeply respected by the townsmen of Greenwich, citizens of this state, and even King Edward VII of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Emperor of India. His name was Luke A. Lockwood and he was born December 1, 1833 in his family’s ancient homestead on what is now Lockwood Road in Riverside.