I was wrong about Al Franken

When the news first broke about Al Franken, I admit I merely overheard the stories.  I was paying scant attention anyway.  The stories presented the news about his groping and sexual misconduct in a way that I assumed were from decades ago.  I understood these as being from his SNL days, when everyone was sleeping around, sex, drugs, decadence, debauchery.   I was ready to give him a little bit of a break, since I think if we don't like how people have behaved over the years, then we ought to hold American liberalism to blame, since they were merely doing what our liberalizing society and culture said was fine to do.  As I said, I'm a slow to condemn someone for painting their room red when, for several generations, our society told everyone to get out there and paint their rooms red.

Nonetheless, that's not what happened.  Apparently, this speaks to that other elephant in the bordello.  That is the liberal pharisee.  There's a nasty habit in our society to assume pharisees are always the conservative types, clinging to their guns and religion, and trying to impose their values on other people.

This would be in contrast to liberals, clinging to their sex and drugs, and trying to impose their values on other people.  At least, we reasoned, they were imposing values so that the rest of us could get high and get laid.  So that must not be phariseeism, or so we thought. 

Fact is, pharisees are, in a nutshell, those who strip away at the heart of the faith - or society - reducing it down to endless legalisms, while doing so in order to impose a burden on others that they have no intention of bearing themselves.   And if that is the definition, there is no group guiltier of such a label than the modern brand found on the liberal side of the tracks.  As Franken, Spacey, Weinstein, and a growing number of wealthy, powerful, and strangely white, men show. 

These were individuals who thought nothing of wagging their fingers at America and the hayseeds who live between the coasts.  They thought nothing of praising their own virtues, while declaring that all non-conformers were soldiers in the vile War on Women.  They openly declared their bona fides, showing how much they cared, how tolerant they were, and except for women concerned about Transgender bathroom bills, how passionate they were about women's concerns and sensitivities.

And yet, they were doing things that, despite some prominent conservative's assurances, were obviously not confined to that demographic known as the religious right.  At worst, some conservatives put forth a good fight when it comes to being as bad as what we're seeing emerge from the cultural left.  At best, I have to admit that most 'traditional respect for women' tended more to come from the quarters of that old time religion than from the hallowed halls of Washington, Hollywood, or other liberally dominated venues.

So no, Mr. Franken is not the result of the perversions celebrated and taught and endorsed and mandated by the era of the Me Generation and the subsequent 'if if feels good, it is good' culture that was all the rage when I was a young'un.  He is a result of the phariseeism that can effect both right and left; that branch of humanity that says morality is for everyone else to live by because, quite frankenly, I'm just too righteous to worry about doing so myself. 

Does this mean I think he should be forced out of the Senate?  That's a tough one.  In a society that seems proud of its ability to ask what today's morality is supposed to be, I'm a bit shy about running straight for the chopping block.  He has admitted it, and the proof is in the picture (unless it was photo shopped).  If we demand that Roy Moore, who has yet to be proven guilty, should end his career, then give Al his bags and tell him to start packing.  Otherwise, if we're willing to give the benefit of the doubt to Franken, even if it's merely because he has apologized for being so accused, then I'd say we at least give the same benefit to Moore, who has yet to  be proven guilty.