Power definitely corrupts many of these moralists. J. Edgar Hoover, former head of the FBI and self-proclaimed moralist (long deceased) abused his power so thoroughly that it was necessary for the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Reagan and Bush administrations were dedicated to skirting or trying to repeal FOIA. Under Reagan disgraced Attorney General Edwin Meese was a prudish moralist. John Keating, of Keating 5 infamy (the guy who caused the Savings & Loan debacle about two decades or so ago was a prudish moralist. Ex so-called 'Drug Czar' William Bennet was another soon-to-be disgraced self-proclaimed moralist, who put his hopeless quest to rid the U.S. of narcotics above everyone's Constitutional, civil, and individual rights. John Ashcroft, George W. Bush's first disgraced Attorney General, was a self-proclaimed moral pitbull. Ashcroft was so prudish that he decreed that a statue of justice depicting anatomically accurate female breasts be covered in drapes. The odious Ashcroft also authored the egregiously draconian USA PATRIOT ACT, which allows the government to snoop on our library records, among other fascistic abuses of our Constitutional and civil rights. The PATRIOT ACT was passed with only Senator Feingold having the courage and the foresight to vote against it. Hopefully, with Obama in office, the PATRIOT ACT will oneday be repealed, but don't hold your breath. As for the religious moralists, they try to justify all of their meddling with everyone else's rights with myths of irreproachability and infallibility. They also attempt to evade criticism by claiming nobody can criticize them unless: "those without sin may cast the first stone." If, according to their standards, I cannot "cast the first stone", I'll settle for a Molotov cocktail. (to be cont'd)
[The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper and as part of my unpublished manuscript "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays.]
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