Our values will always find us out

Posted by: Dwayne Hastings on March 13, 2008 Hot Issues •

Eliot Spitzer, who brought down giants of crime as New York State’s attorney general and was a powerful and respected governor, was brought down by the frailties of his own flesh.

The very real possibility exists that Spitzer will someday go on trial for money laundering. It is ironic, if not fitting, that Spitzer’s extramarital trysts were uncovered when his bank reported unusual money transfers by someone using the name of the New York State governor. (The governor had been known to use this same method to expose illegal activity among businessmen.) Turns out it was Spitzer, not an impostor, forwarding cash to a prostitution ring.

Although Spitzer initially said this was a “private matter,” most people, including many New Yorkers, disagreed. Can a man (or a woman) who is a public figure have a high, impenetrable wall between his private life and his public life? Should there be such a high wall in any of our lives? Can we be a mild-manner school teacher or bus driver or accountant during the day and live a no-holds-barred, illicit life at night? When does who we are in secret bleed over into who we are by day?

New York voters had no idea Spitzer, who was applauded for his successes in fighting organized crime and political corruption, would someday cheat on his wife when they elected, and then overwhelmingly, reelected him to office. They probably couldn’t envision he would take such a tremendous risk, soiling his office and crippling his marriage.

Voting values is critically important for our family and our nation; living our values may well have eternal ramifications. We can’t cage our immoral side, letting it “out” only when no one sees.

It is said –erroneously—that the bigger they are the harder they fall. While millions of Americans are aware of Spitzer’s moral indiscretion, the pain and heartache that results from anyone’s failures is just as deep and just as real.

We all share one thing with the disgraced governor of the Empire State—a sin nature. A never ceasing tug to rebel against what is good and right, to do what is wrong even though we know it is wrong. It has been getting us humans in trouble for years.

It is when we believe we are in charge that we find out how wrong we really are.

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