Parsing Bill Bennett

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader might yet wind up producing a thoughtful post today at the rate he's going.

More on morality and Bill Bennett's gambling. The good Big Hominid has two posts on this Bennett issue. The first one is here. In this post the Poet Laureate cites the oft-forgotten (or at least not-oft-heeded) instruction of Jesus that "He who is without sin may cast the first stone at her [the adulteress]." In the second post, one of the Big Hominid's readers wrote in about how Bennett is a hypocrite for railing against sinners while being one. That post is here.

While the Big Hominid is absolutely correct in that your Maximum Leader agrees with Bill Bennett when he (Bennett) admitted that he was not acting admirably. There is, at least in your Maximum Leader's mind, a distinction here that needs to be made.

Bill Bennett was not acting admirably because he was in the position of role model, and he acted in a way that could promote a bad activity in some. Your Maximum Leader doesn't think there is anything sinful or immoral about gambling in and of itself. Your Maximum Leader (still true to his upbringing) feels that excessive gambling is immoral/sinful/wrong. Excessive in this case being when money is spend on games and not on the necessities of one's self or family.

For example, there is nothing immoral/wrong with your Maximum Leader dropping $50 a month at his regular poker game. That $50, if lost, is not going to cause the Villainettes, Wee Villain, or Mrs. Villain any hardship. In fact, that $50 is allocated (mentally at least) by your Maximum Leader every month to his poker fund. (Unless your Maximum Leader won, in which case the winnings roll over to the next month.)

If someone can afford to loose $500, $5000, $50,000, or $500,000 a month at gambling without that loss affecting their family or other financial responsibilities there is nothing immoral about that. In Bill Bennett's case, the money he lost didn't impoverish him nor did it impose on his family. And none of Bennett's writings or public pronouncement ever condemned gambling.

The problem is that Bennett could be viewed by many as a role model. A person inclined to follow Bennett's moral injunctions may assume that since he made no injunction against gambling, it must be okay. Regardless of how it might negatively affect one's life. Furthermore, a person who might not have the means to afford to gamble may view Bennett's behaviour (once it was revealed) and assume that it was/is okay for them to gamble away the money they need to live. And that is not the case.

So while your Maximum Leader will say that Bil Bennett may not have given careful thought to his leisure time activities from the perspective of "I'm Bill Bennett - role model to the masses." he certainly didn't taint himself so as to be unable to continue to speak on moral issues as he had before. Frankly, to your Maximum Leader's knowledge, he still doesn't condemn gambling or talk about it. (Although your Maximum Leader seems to remember something stating that Bennett has sworn it off now.)

Your Maximum Leader still isn't sure how Bennett was acting immorally by gambling.