West Virginia’s Robert Byrd: once a member of the KKK, but now a respected US Senator. Jesse Jackson: still an influential civil rights and religious voice, even after the revelation that he fathered a child out of wedlock and paid hush money to keep the story quiet.
For some reason, these two men were able to get past some damaging elements of their pasts and retain a measure of influence and respect.
On the other hand, many others don’t.
I realize this is a very open-ended question, and it’s prompted in part by a hijack-snipe at me in another thread. I had mentioned that the Dominican Republic’s Joaquin Balaguer, despite having been part of a brutal regime and a lieutenant of a dictator, was an admirable leader in his own right after that regime was overthrown.
This is, obviously, in some measure dependent on what you view as admirable in a political leader. But whether you agree or disagree with Balaguer’s politics, it seems you can either accept him as rehabilitated from his association with the dictator Trujillo, or you can say that no matter WHAT he did under his own power, he’s forever tainted and thus never worthy of defense.
Not to make this thread about Balaguer… what, in general, are the necessary conditions for political and personal redemption? How should we judge whether or not someone is redeemed from earlier wrong?
My answer in particular would be, again, it depends. After all, there are many possible scenarios and I can’t see that many that would allow me to posit a generic answer.
Mostly, I would accept anyone’s change if they would either show some kind of believable remorse or prove renunciation to their previous position.
I know it’s almost impossible to come up with a set of generic rules to fit highly particularized situations.
But what you’ve said above strikes me as a good start. Their remorse must be real, not calculated, and their rununciation of their prior “evil” must be equally genuine. Someone who was a Klan member because it helped his political career and now is not a Klan member because it would hurt his political career hasn’t done enough. He has got to show that he genuinely believes his previous position was wrong, wholly apart from whatever political position it places him in.
First, start with explaining why you insist on seeing the subjects of your question in binary terms - either evil or good, or once-evil but now-redeemed, or conceivably once-good but now-evil.
Life isn’t Star Wars. Reality, and real people, are far more complex. The extremes you limit your consideration to virtually never exist, and even the individuals you name don’t fit the simplistic adjectives you ascribe to them. The judgments you ascribe to others about them, i.e. “respected” or “tainted”, are similarly simplistic caricatures of others’ views and are not a good basis for debate.
Real people usually try to do their best, and generally fall short somewhere. Real people have personal successes and personal failures. Real people are a mixture of altruistic and selfish. You’re asking where on what scales and at what times a reading can be taken to summarize somebody with a single word. It doesn’t work that way.
It depends on a number of things - the degree of the prior wrong, the degree to which the person has repented (good works being more important than words), and the extent to which the person is a valued leader in general.
As far as prior wrongs go, singling out Jesse Jackson (or Martin Luther King, who was apparently involved in similar escapades) for sexual transgression(s) seems pretty weak in comparison to a politician who took part in a murderous regime (I know nothing about Balaguer, so this is a general statement).
On the question of repentance, here’s another parallel - between Robert Byrd and Hugo Black. Black’s career on the Supreme Court (including positions taken on civil rights) arguably more than made up for a brief flirtation with the Klan. Byrd’s involvement was more serious and his sympathies far more longstanding - but if his natural enemies on that score have forgiven him based on his political and/or moral turnaround, continued condemnation is difficult (I’d rather he was attacked on his sleazy and profligate pork-barrel spending).
Harry Truman started his political career as a functionary of the corrupt Pendergast political machine in Kansas City. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Truman#Politics_and_the_Pendergast_Machine He managed to keep himself personally honest, never profiting illicitly from public business as his colleagues did, but his own correspondence shows he always had deep moral doubts as to whether it was all right to participate in such a system. (He also may have joined the Klan once, but dropped out as soon as he learned more about the organization.)
Mark Twain was always personally ashamed of his very brief participation in a pro-Confederate militia in Missouri during the Civil War.
If your only criticism of Balaguer is, “He was part of the Trujillo regime,” then my point is perfectly illustrated.
If your criticism of Balaguer is, “Look what he stood for as President in 1986-1996! He was evil!” then you’ve sort of illustrated my point as well: we can debate Balaguer’s value on his own merits, without ascribing to him the sins of the regime.
I can do that, if you don’t mind me hijacking your own thread. If you don’t want me to do that I still want my opinion on record: Balaguer is a particularly bad example of politican redemption.
I don’t view this as a particularly religiously based issue, and I’m unaware of any doctrine that requires even the most ardent believers to talk of nothing except aspects of Jesus Christ. Even devout followers of Christ may legitimately debate corn, chess, or politics without having first exhausted the subject of Jesus.
So… thanks for your invitation to table this discussion, but I believe I’ll pass.
In terms of political redemption I think citing US and non-US examples is a mistake, Bricker. There are clearly different standard in the US electorate for the two groups.
Look at, for example, Richard Nixon. While many people will continue to hate him towards the end of his life he was clearly ‘redeemed’ in the eyes of the media. He was seen as a sort of ‘elder statesman’ of foreign policy. Whether justified or not that’s how he got that Newsweek cover all those years ago…as a ‘comeback’.
Note, however, that political comebacks rarely mean a person re-takes elected office. Nixon did it in a different age. I don’t think Delay, as another example, will. But he could easily find himself moving into the ‘respected commentator on politics and policy’ that many find themselves in.
Age and time have a large factor as well. Your Robert Byrd example is a good one. To the modern electorate the fact that Byrd was a Klansman decades ago is a non-starter in the ‘everyone did it back then’ mode. But David Duke will be forever tarnished with his membership because it’s a part of his past that overlaps the current memory of the electorate.
And that’s what it boils down to. Time, the appearance and acceptance of contrition, and some quiet time.
I agree on the various shades of grey that color everyday life.
However, most of us don’t have chances to get to know public figures as “real people”. There will always be salient points that will color our perception of those who choose to live in the limelight. And when they indulge on extreme behavior (KKK membership, for instance), the coloration becomes extreme as well.
Apparently you’ve (conveniently) forgotten option number three: both criticisms apply as they inexorably intertwined. For one, as I’ve already mentioned in the so-called “snipe” at you in the other thread, Balaguer was the political/administrative brain behind Trujillo’s long and bloody reign of terror. Later on, when American intervention decisively aided in deposing the democratically elected President of the country – none other than Balaguer’s life-long nemesis, Juan Bosch – he came to power virtually unopposed and stayed there for the better part of the rest of his life, developing his very own cult of personality. Really not all that different from the man he had served for so many years. After all, how could it be? Since, once again, he was the glue that held together “Trujillo & Co.” Which is essentially what the Dominican Republic had become under the infamous dictator: a whole country running as a private enterprise for the benefit of Trujillo and his gang. From sugar mills to amber, if it was produced in the DR, Trujillo & Co owned it or got their cut.
Fast forward to his first consecutive twelve years in office as a “democratically elected” leader, and you’ll see that essentially the same modus operandi was in place…with one HUGE difference that can be succinctly described in Balaguer’s own infamous words: “Corruption stops at the doors to my office.” For the most part, yes that was certainly true, for you see, Balaguer was, in his distilled essence, a magalomanic figure, who’s main ambition was power for power’s sake. As long as he wore the “ ñoña” (Dominican slang for the Presidential band), there was little else he cared about.
Much, much more I could write about Dominican politics (after all, I am a long time resident) Know what though? Don’t think it’s worth my time posting to this silly thread anyway. Because I’m sure we’re not going to change each others minds, and secondly, I simply don’t think it’s worth the time and effort.
As a closing, I’d like to mention that I’m fully enjoying Latin America’s left turn. But then again, I am enough of a cynic when it comes to politics, religion and love, that I very much doubt the institutionalized corruption Balaguer left in place is going to end any time soon. Certainly not in this old farts lifetime – which likely has a lot to do with my conviction that the world is going down the tubes. A " Domino Effect" alright, but I highly doubt it’s the one the WH imbecils were hoping for.
Perhaps John Profumo might be a better, if lesser, example. The centre of a major scandal in the 1960s, he quietly beavered away for many years and was recognised for his efforts before he died.
I think this is a pretty good list. I’ll add some things to it:
-Do their past misdeeds demonstrate poor political judgment? Someone who stole cars in their youth is more easily redeemed than someone who organized a cheating ring at her college. The latter person, by demonstrating dishonesty in the public arena, is going to be much less likely to earn my vote ever.
-Have they paid the appropriate penalty for their misdeeds? Someone who hit his wife as a young man, went to jail, went through therapy, and emerged to work with violent offenders is more likely to get my vote than someone who hit his wife, got off because he’s friends with the DA, and now refuses to address the matter, having put it behind him.
-Were their misdeeds part of a political job? Related to the first one: I can forgive someone who, while a senator, shoplifts. I can’t forgive someone who, while a senator, accepts bribes (or orders illegal wiretaps, or cooperates with torture, etc.).
[Slight hijack]
Our Bobby Byrd may have turned in his KKK robes, but he’s traded them for a cloak of homophobia. He pushed for the Defense of Marriage Act and at least twice been the sole Democrat to vote against pro-gay legislation. He rated a mere 20% by the American Civil Liberties Union and an appalling 13% by the Human Rights Campaign. No real turnaround here. He’s just a bigot of a more fashionable stripe now.
