Conservative Republican candidate Jacob A. Rush, a 35-year-old attorney, has begun a campaign in Florida’s 3rd Congressional District to win the primary against incumbent U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho, a Tea Party stalwart seeking a second term. Rush’s campaign website portrays him as a “conservative straight shooter,”and he may indeed be that. A Florida blog uncovered the fact that Rush is also, however, a long-time member of the Mind’s Eye Society, “a nationwide community of gothic-punk role-players who take on the personas of vampires and other supernatural beings” for fantasy battles “against their own bestial natures, hunters, and each other.”
It’s all fun and games with improvisational theater tossed in, though with a decidedly adult set of themes. Rush liked ( likes?) to play a character named “van de Winst”, a lusty vampire, and photos of the lawyer were found on the web showing him and/or members of his club, playing vampire, burning books, aiming shotguns at dogs, pretending to be demons, displaying Satanic symbols, being chained and gagged…you know, that kind of thing. Fun stuff.
After this all came out—how could he think it would not?—Rush explained in a press release:
“All my life, I’ve been blessed with a vivid imagination from playing George Washington in elementary school to dressing up as a super hero last Halloween for trick or treaters. Any cursory review of the Internet will show that I have played heroes and villains…. I have never hid nor shied away from disclosing my hobby activities. When I was hired at the Sheriff’s office, I fully disclosed my gaming and theatre background on the application, and these hobbies posed absolutely no problem or raised any flags. In fact, when applying for undercover work, these hobbies were considered an advantage, so much so my shift lieutenant nicknamed me ‘Shakespeare.'”
And he included this photo of him and his wife…
…wisely choosing not to send this one:
WOW.
And thus your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for today is….
Is it Jacob Rush’s unusual personal hobby relevant to his ability to serve in Congress?
Well, you know, I’m the artistic director of a theater company. In many corporate ethics training gigs for a Fortune 500 company over a two-year span, I appeared at meetings and training sessions dressed as “Captain Compliance (TM),” who looked like this:
I am not, in other words, one to denigrate someone for a whimsical or theatrical streak. Far from it. On the other hand, I think that a candidate’s interests, activities, proclivities and behavior when he or she is not on the job can tell us a lot about that candidate’s character, which is critical the most important question of all : Is he trustworthy?
So far, none of Rush’s extracurricular interests appear to have carried over into the workplace; he hasn’t bitten anyone, for example. So he has a kinky hobby; Bill Clinton had a kinky hobby. Rush, as far as we know, unlike Bill, hasn’t lied about his hobby, and that should make him more trustworthy than Bill, who also engaged in his hobby at the office. Isn’t Rush’s role-playing the epitome of a private quirk that isn’t the business of anyone but his fellow role-players?
On the other hand…the guy dresses up like a freaking vampire!!!!
When he’s a vampire (or something; it’s unclear what role he was playing when this issued forth), he writes stuff like this:
“At first I thought you were just stupid and I wanted to stick my dick in your mouth to shut you up while I snorted a line off my new machete,” Rush said, adding, “Rae tells me that you are a Maiden and it’s your job to be kind of stupid and that I’m not supposed to have intercourse with Maidens. You shouldn’t believe everything that people tell you or you’re going to end up naked and sore, tied to the floor of a van marked ‘Free Candy.'”
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/florida-house-candidate-vampire-role-player-2014-4#ixzz2xnTAsdee
Remember this guy, Rich Iott, another GOP Congressional candidate whose role-playing hobby involved dressing up as an SS officer with other Nazi “re-enactors”? Do you want to articulate for me how a potential Congressman whose alter-ego is a Nazi is significantly less trustworthy than one who regularly pretends to be a vampire? Or was everyone unfair to Rich Iott, who wasn’t a Nazi, he insisted, and didn’t admire Nazis; he just like to pretend to be one in his spare time.
In the final analysis, I cannot avoid reaching the conclusion that Rush’s hobby, like Iott’s, has signature significance: he’s weird. I don’t understand what’s going on in his head, and that means that I can’t trust him, and neither can voters.
As a rather eccentric character myself, and one who is trustworthy, I feel bad about that conclusion. Should I?
Here’s a poll. I’m very interested in the response.
[I have added some further thought on this topic here.]
______________________
Sources: Business Insider 1, 2, St. Peters Blog, Washington Post
Graphics: Miami New Times
Ethics Alarms 
You know what? John Edwards wasn’t weird. He was waxed and shined and molded into a presidential-shaped mold that thankfully never got used. New politicians are as indistinguishable as the blonde talking heads on Fox News. (Think of this: when do you think the next time we’re going to have a president with a MUSTACHE will be?)
Screw it. Let’s get some weird in there. Weird is new. Weird is interesting. Weird isn’t boring. Weird might lead to a new way of doing things. If a person is weird, but otherwise capable, I say go for it.
Of course, if he can’t focus on his job because he needs a ballgag to feel “safe” or whatever, that’s past “weird” into “crazy” and then he can’t do the job.
Weird is fine, but crazy isn’t. We just need to see if he’s crazy.
In answer to your question, the first woman president.
Of course, weird is the rule rather rather than the exception with elected officials at a national level. All four guys on Mt. Rushmore were freaks…Teddy may have been the weirdest political leader on any level in our history. The current crop–Clinton, Obama, Reid, McCain, Pelosi, Rand Paul, his Dad, Mitt, Biden…these are all weird people. Who knows what they dress up like in the bedroom? I have no trouble at all picturing John and Cindy spicing up their sex life by playing “Darth and Leia”—I just choose not to.
What stood out so much about Gerald Ford was that he wasn’t weird at all–he was just a regular guy. He never could have been elected President. But routinely dressing up as a vampire after the age of 19 weird is still a weird too far for Congress, I think.
I think I’d vote for the Tea Party guy. This guy is just too weird even for Florida. I can’t imagine a Republican being wheeled into Congress in a coffin even though some the current members look like they belong in one.
You need an option in that poll for Hell no! If anything, his “weirdness” makes him more trustworthy
This is a man who, however strange the setting may have been, has proven himself able to walk in someone else’s shoes for a while. He’s no more likely to be corrupt than anyone else, and because of his roleplaying and imagination, has probably thought his way through the ethics and consequences of a wide variety situations.
To me, that makes him more likely to use good ethical judgment and empathy in his political decision-making.
Why do I sense a tongue being slammed into a cheek like a pile-driver?
Because I was actually mostly serious.
🙂
“Captain Compliance”? The mind boggles. The next thing you know, our host will be sexual harassment panda.
Now THAT’S ridiculous.
The Captain was a satirical device, and more important, they paid me a bundle for that gig. I assure you, I would not have played CC for free, fun though he was.
No, of course you wouldn’t have done it for free. Why, you don’t even have the costume any more. And you certainly never lock yourself in your bedroom and put on the costume and stand in front of the mirror holding up your fist and yelling, “Comply mortals! COMPLY!!!”
(I DO have the costume, actually…)
I really hope there’s a Youtube clip of Capt. Compliance somewhere…
I agree that dressing up as a vampire outside of Halloween or a dramatic performance is weird. On the other hand, this nation is full of people who like to suit up as soldiers from every war from the Revolution to WWII and reenact the battles, a lesser number of people who run around in armor, etc at Rennaissance events, and even a few who own vintage planes and fly them at shows (there’s one attorney near Reading, PA who owns and pilots a Spitfire). In the end they do no one any harm and usually put on a pretty good show while they are at it, even though I can see why some eyebrows go up at those who choose to play the designated “bad guys” in all of these scenarios, be they the British trying to justify continued occupation of America, Confederates trying to cloak defending slavery in states’ rights language, or yes, Nazi Germans. However, without them, only half the story can be told.
I think the guy’s writing is a somewhat better window into his mind, perhaps everyone’s mind, since far more people write than engage in costumed role-play, and in this case it shows a window into a mind still given to juvenile horror/sex material, which belies the idea that the dressing up is all just fun and games. This guy’s mind hasn’t caught up with his body, and, although I don’t think either the role-playing or the writing should be an automatic disqualifier (I seem to remember the pugilistic now-former Senator Webb as having produced some interesting published material), it’s certainly fair game for questioning, and if his opponent uses it in an attack ad, well, what can he say?
If “I am not a witch” was enough to derail Christine O’Donnell, think what something like this could do. If the guy’s smart, he’ll step away from this campaign before it becomes a national embarassment.
Oh, this discussion is academic; he’s toast, no doubt about that. If only he were a Democrat..
I know a huge number of successful people (C-suite, government, Am Law 100s, etc.) who do this. These are just gamers who like to dress up. I’ve never been the dress up type, but these guys are just amateur actors. There is nothing weird about it. The only thing that distinguishes this guy from Reagan is that he doesn’t get paid for it. Neither do my friends who do Civil War reenactments. Now — if it turns out that this guy drinks blood and thinks that he can actually turn into a bat, I’ll revise my opinion.
That’s right, you’re the other nerd here, you’ll appreciate this- at PAX a few years back I was “Bitten” by a Vampire LARPer. Luckily for all involved he was playing a “psychic” vampire and his “bite” consisted of grabbing me tightly by the shoulder and trying to hold me in place, which did not go well for him. Still, this guy apparently isn’t doing that…
Ha!
I agree; I don’t think live-action roleplaying is all that weird in the big scheme of things. Nerdy, yes. I think most hobbies that harm no one are pretty irrelevant as indicia of fitness for office. And perhaps someone who is an off-beat thinker is what we need in times like this.
Again…what about Rich Iott?
I need to think about this. My gut reaction is that they are not equivalent because vampires are fantasy creatures and hence not real (e.g. this is just some guy being goofy, as is he and his wife dressing up as superheroes), while Nazis are unequivocally evil and unfortunately still very much with us (e.g. this is a guy who is portraying a member of an actual evil group who who are still around, and who was and were the enemies of our country). The reason I have to think about this is because re-enactors portray real people and events, including Conferates and so on, but I would argue that there’s a historical benefit there that is not obtained by dressing up as a Nazi.
As I just pointed out, vampires are all based on the exploits of one very bad, very real guy. Would it be that different if everything we know about Nazis was from a nove and movies rather than history? Then Iott would be in the clear?
Vlad the Impaler was a really guy and known as ” Dracula”. I think this guy role playing the archetypal vampire would be a very unfortunate choice for Republican voters as he would play into the hands of liberal ‘progressive’ who see all Republicans as bloodsuckers 😉 Anyway, we know who the real bloodsuckers are and they are currently in power in Washington.
By your reasoning, people who are super interested in Confederate stuff are all horrible people…
No, by his reasoning, people who have an excessive interest in portraying Confederate forces, exclusive of all other options, don’t get to complain when people begin to wonder if there’s more than the mask.
And Rich Iott, the Nazi re-enactor?
Surely you don’t think that dressing up as an enemy of America and member of one of the most widely reviled, generally considered evil, genocidal regimes in modern history is the same as dressing up as a make-believe character to play pretend?
Your inner snob is showing here, Jack. You don’t get his hobby, so that somehow makes him weird, and all those weird guys must basically be like each other right?
No, my inner scholar is showing. Fantasy is fantasy. Vlad Tepes was as evil as any Nazi; vampires—Dracula– pay homage to his memory. And Iott was a fantasy Nazi. There is no real distinction. This just the “Ick” factor, and your Ick draws the line at Nazis. That’s emotional, not rational.
I’d challenge your assumption that Tepes was as evil as a Nazi, but I’m more concerned with the fact that you think that the historical figure whose reputation for ferocity got his name ripped off for a novel has anything to do with modern vampire lore.
Ferocity? You get a euphemism prize for that one. He staked tens of thousands of innocent people. He set peasants on fire.
And this, my personal favorite..”Vlad had the Turkish envoys killed on the pretext that they had refused to raise their “hats” to him, by nailing their turbans to their heads.”
That’s MUCH better than being a Nazi.
Are you going to say that sports teams shouldn’t call themselves the Spartans either? They pillaged and slew all over the place, and had a nasty tendency to murder envoys.
And is a local folk hero for his defense against the Ottomans and protecting Christianity in Europe. Matthias Corvinus pushed his reputation as a dangerous lunatic, in part to justify his own lack of participation in combatting the Ottomans, while Romanian and Russian sources portray him as a harsh and cruel but also just and brave leader.
None of which matters a bit, because he WASNT A VAMPIRE.
He was, however, a homicidal maniac. OK to dress up repeatedly as, say, Ed Gein, then, or not? What if the fantasy involves playing Ted Bundy and acting out the strangling of women…you know, for kicks. OK?
If you refuse to see the difference between real and pretend there’s no hope.
You’re ducking, Luke. Both are playing fantasy, both fantasies involve embracing vile things, if only for fun. You are refusing to deal with the issue I raised. Whether the evil values emanate from a real source, a fictional source, or a real source turned fictional source doesn’t change the nature of the values or how we should judge those that embrace them “just for fun.”
He’s not ducking. You just don’t understand this at all. In fantasy RPG or LARP world, you could be a vampire who never kills anyone, or just drinks pig blood that you buy from a local butcher shop, or has a conscience, or desperately tries to acquire a soul, etc. Or — you could be a mass murderer who everyone tries to defeat. And then, the next time you play, you might be the plucky non-vampire Hero! The world that has been created by each group has nothing to do with historical events. In fact, if “Dracula” ever shows up — it usually turns up that he’s just a poser.
Here’s where your logic is failing. This is acting, just acting. For your conclusion to hold, no one who ever played a vampire on screen or stage (or even Halloween) would be fit for office.`
See my most recent post. Actors play roles because that’s their job, and they are paid to do it. Bela Legosi began dressing like Dracula in his spare time, because he was losing his mind.
One activity is in support of a career, the other threatens it. If someone is that fond of Nazis, historical massacre specialists, monsters and creatures of evil, it is certainly legitimate to ask why.
I’m still waiting for a coherent, no spinning answer to my Rich Iott comparison. He was “just acting” too. Luke’s artificial distinction between like real evil people and fictional evil people based on real evil people doesn’t wash. Is that the best you can do too?
Snobbery, pure and simple. Getting paid for something doesn’t make it somehow inherently more noble. Actors “choose” to do actors and choose their roles as well- every actor who’s ever played Hitler chose to take that role. Every actor who’s donned the hockey mask has chosen to play Jason Voorhees.
Find me the place where I said anything about “noble.”
And he’s not dressing up as Vlad, nor are his pals. What they’re doing has no resemblance to the real Vlad Tepes beyond Tepes’ nickname being the same name as a famous vampire character.
And besides, Nazis actually, you know, EXIST. They are a real thing. Vampires are not. There were actually groups of real Nazis wearing those uniforms and murdering people. There are not actually societies of vampires lurking around cities and battling hunters between feeding raids and complex politics. Real vs Not Real is a pretty dang “Real” distinction.
No, we are talking about values. Someone who dresses up as Simon Legree is signalling that something about a fictional, brutal slave owner appeals to him. How is that different from being a “fantasy” villain?
Because, again, brutal slave owners EXISTED. Simon Legree the specific individual did not, but vicious slave owners are REAL. Vampires are PRETEND. You know, as in “not real?” As in “No historical atrocities associated with vampires?”
A politician who dresses up as a Nazi will raise some serious questions about his feeligns regarding Jews (and others): The real people that Real Nazis brutalized and killed. A Simon Legree pretender raises the same question about his feelings regarding Blacks: the real people that vicious slave owners brutalized and killed. A politician who dresses up as a vampire raises those questions about… oh that’s right, there are no real people that vampires have brutalized and killed, because there aren’t real vampires!
People play games where they get to be vampires for the same reason that Dungeons & Dragons lets you be evil, why Warcraft lets you control the Orc Horde, heck, even why the “heels” in pro wrestling are popular with fans. People watch franchise horror movies to cheer for Jason and Freddy and Michael. Sometimes it’s fun to root for the bad guy, and doing it in a pretend setting means your’e not rooting for an actual bad guy who does actual things.
Jack — LARPers (and again this is not my thing, I just know a ton) who dress up like vampires have absolutely nothing to do with Vlad the Impaler or any historical event. It is no different than dressing up like a Hobbit or a Tooth Fairy. It is vastly different from honoring the Nazis and all they represented.
Thanks, and ditto to your above comment about how this is acting. It’s weird acting, for sure- a hybrid of roleplaying games, street theater, and improv, but I bet most actors would admit it’s fun to play the bad guy sometimes.
Someone has to play the part of the OPFOR…
And the Nazis have the benefit of having the better-looking uniforms…
I mean, come on, those hats and trench coats? Ballin’.
Well, historically the losing side always has the better uniforms….
I’m with those who say this isn’t any more of a comment on his leadership than those who dress up as soldiers to role-play battles. You see puff pieces now and then on how “geeks” are now “cool” but I don’t buy it- this is a geeky hobby and therefore it’s less acceptable, just like a politician who played tournament poker would be seen as “one of the guys” but one who played tournament Magic: The Gathering would be viewed with suspicion and hostility.
While he’s campaigning and holding office I’d expect him to knock it off, for the sake of decorum and because he has better things to do- just like I’d expect a Civil War reenactor to hang up the gray wool or a poker player to shelf the shades.
Geeks are not now cool, no matter how many puff pieces you see in soft publications or how many renditions of “I Am What I Am” you hear. As adults we don’t harass each other over our non-mainstream hobbies the way we used to give our teen peers grief who showed insufficient interest in rock music (and only whatever band was “in”), cars, sports (with disputes over teams sometimes turning violent, I still remember 2 fellow eighth graders having a fairly serious fistfight over the Islanders v. the Rangers) , or girls, but if we’re wise we keep those niche interests in their place.
Oh, no one will slam us up against a locker or lie in wait for us on our way home from school for being insufficiently mainstream in our interest the way the football players used to slam the chess players up against the lockers simply because they could or the way the tougher kids lay in wait for the one male dancer (there’s one in every class) walking home from the studio sometimes just to taunt, occasionally to shove and beat, but professional and political opportunities tend to go to those who appear “cooler” than their competition, other things being equal, assuming all of those seeking the position or promotion are minimally qualified as a prerequisite.
So by all means, have whatever unusual hobbies or reading or viewing habits you want, but exercise some discretion in who you let know about them. If you’re into reenacting, ok, but maybe keep the photographs in the blue wool limited online to those who share your interest. If you’re into reading or writing fantasy, ok, but keep all the books, notes, etc. where they can be quickly and easily put away and out of sight if your Bible Belt cousin comes to visit, and so on. There’s simply no need to give someone else a bullet to shoot you in the back with.
That’s a dilemma, though: doesn’t the voting public have a right to know this kind of thing?
The voting public has the right to know if a candidate has a criminal record, and that includes a crappy driving record (goes to carelessness). The voting public has a right to know what kind of causes a candidate gives to (goes to views and to trustworthiness if he votes one way but gives another). The candidate should have the right to draw a curtain over certain areas of his life he wants to remain private, like his family if he doesn’t want to parade them before the cameras. Odd hobbies are kind of a gray area, particularly the kind that might draw attention, like this one. Frankly it’s no one’s business if I’m a collector of antique chessmen, but I don’t think there’s particular impact one way or the other if some idiot photographer catches a picture of my cabinet with chessmen of all sorts and all materials, and if someone decided to break balls about the fact that I had a set made of ivory or a jeweled set that appeared too rich for me, I’d tell him to get a life. On the other hand, something like this is damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Talk about it openly, and you risk paparazzi trying to catch you in costume. Draw a curtain over it, and when someone DOES catch you in costume, it’s a scandal.
Actually nemmind, a lot of this was dealt with in the post that followed this one.
Here’s the dilemma, though: If you feel there is something in your life you need to keep hidden and secret, that should tell you that there is either something wrong with it, or something wrong with keeping it hidden, OR that you are seeking approval from the wrong group. Hiding something from voters is inherently questionable, as it does in fact implicate integrity: “There is more to me than you know, and I can’t trust you to know the rest.”
Here’s what Luke and Beth refuse or choose not to acknowledge: they wouldn’t put that they dress up each night and play vampire on a job resume. If they were on a board choosing the CEO of a bank, that would be a disqualifier. If a part-time vampire worked for a day care center, or was a minister, or was an investment counselor, that information becoming public would be a job-ender, and it isn’t just “Ick.” It’s the market. It’s trust. Not all trust is based on rational factors—everything from looks, to age, to demeanor, to background, to body language, speaking style–everything counts.
I can’t disagree that you certainly have a point, but part of me wants to say that even high officials have a right to say “none of your goddamn business” about certain aspects of their lives that don’t bear on their duties. If someone asks me how things are between me and a family member, assuming there’s no violation of the law involved, am I not within my rights to say that’s between me and that person? If I go out of town for the weekend, and someone asks me where I was, am I not within my rights to say that I was reachable, and that’s all you need to know? If someone asks me about what church I belong to, am I not within my rights to tell them my faith is a private matter?
Maybe I think that a family squabble over some item that has only sentimental value is best kept within the family. Maybe I don’t think the fact that I went to the family cabin to do some fishing is a matter of public interest (it’s not). Maybe I’m Catholic and I don’t want the reporters breaking my balls about abortion. I am having a tough time with the idea that a public servant’s life should essentially be an open book and the disquieting idea that just being private about some things is an invitation to speculate I must be hiding something untoward.
I think the statement that “If you feel there is something in your life you need to keep hidden and secret, that should tell you that there is either something wrong with it, or something wrong with keeping it hidden, OR that you are seeking approval from the wrong group” sets up a potentially dangerous presumption that anything private is salacious or wrong, and thereby unintentionally whets the appetite for ever more intrusive reporting and investigating of anyone who enters public life.
I submit there’s got to be a balance between making certain that the true disqualifiers don’t get hidden and vetting of potential office-holders descending into “gotcha” tactics designed just to embararrass.
Yes. But if one is in public life, it is the public, not you, who gets to decide what you can keep private and not suffer for it. Romney wanted to keep his taxes private. Clinton wanted to keep his blow-jobs private.
Or you just live your life like you want, and serve as an example of how a LARPer, or a gamer, or a reenactor, or whatever, can still be a perfectly normal member of society. You know, rather than letting assholes dictate what you can enjoy in public.
If it was only about assholes and bullies most adults wouldn’t give a fig, except as necessary to keep peace at home and in the family. However, this is about voters. To appeal to them there are standards you have to follow, which unfortunately can include not doing things that are off-putting.
Jack: “he’s weird. I don’t understand what’s going on in his head, and that means that I can’t trust him, and neither can voters.”
Hold on there. You think he is weird. Fine. YOU don’t understand him. Fine. If that means YOU can’t trust him, fine. But don’t then try to speak for all voters.
Maybe some of them do understand him and can trust him. Or, they think that he has a weird hobby, but he is harming no one and breaking no laws, and he is not hiding it. That makes him more honest and trustworthy than the politician that has weird proclivities but hides it to protect his image. Or, the politician who pretends to be a fan of the theater and arts because that is the image that he believes he needs to project.
That he dresses up like the Flash may be weird. That he is not hiding it may make some believe that he is less likely to hide other things that might be embarrassing. That would make him trustworthy.
-Jut
Well, I obviously wasn’t speaking for ALL voters—he has the vampire vote locked up.
I’m not so sure. Vampires may view this as ‘cultural appropriation’. The undead have been oppressed in this country since it’s beginning.
What do you mean the undead have been been oppressed. I presume that the undead and dead alike all vote Democrat. And, you see which party controls the Senate and White House.
-Jut
Valid point, the dead historically vote democrat…
Dingdingdingdingdingding!!!!
Of course you weren’t. But, even generalizing beyond yourself (based upon YOUR lack of comprehension) is a bit dicey. I am not sure I understand him, but I don’t think that necessarily entails that I can’t trust him. Looking at your poll, all six of the choices look reasonable to me. If I HAD to choose, I am not sure which I would pick.
-Jut
That’s why it was an Ethics Quiz. If am certain I know the answer, I am not shy about declaring it, quiz-less.
Jack,
Lincoln made war against the vampires in his spare time as a weird hobby. No one really knew about it an look how he turned out as president!
Where’s AM on this? I bet he knows LARPers although I suspect he’s more of an online or board RPGer like me.
I imagine he’s tied up right now.
Just checked the blog, and was trying to find a good spot to jump in on this…
I know (or knew) a great many LARPers. Hell, I was one for a time (White Wolf games, a member of their “Camarilla” group, back before they swapped to the New World Of Darkness idiocy). These days I prefer tabletop gaming (always did, really), though locally there are virtually no games that aren’t 4th edition D&D.
I would harm people for a decent Shadowrun game. ANYWAYS…
As a result, I have a special loathing for LARPers – feckless assclowns the lot of them, though my dislike might stem from the fuckstains I dealt with in the Cam.
In and of itself, I don’t think LARPing means someone is unfit for office – it is at its core a semi-formalized improv performance. I don’t think it suggests anything particularly wrong with someone, or mean that they are untrustworthy any more than any other person is.
The reason I would never support the guy is the fact that he and his wife committed an act of miscegenation – He’s dressed as The Flash, she’s dressed as The Phoenix..DC and Marvel should never, ever mix. One is full of interesting characters, and the other is the New 52.
So, to my comment below about “creativity, communication, diplomacy and taste”, add “accuracy and attention to detail.”
Brilliant post. Thank you!
I think the world must be ending and we can make snowballs in hell: AM and Beth both agree on something. 😉
I’m pretty sure it’s the Third Seal…
Jack,
I don’t think the answer will be found if the question is based on “should we trust a candidate who has a hobby that requires imagination and make believe?”
I think the real question involves the nature of the make believe. A guy who likes to play vampire with his friends and doesn’t HIDE the fact? TRUSTWORTHY, if there’s nothing questionable about the nature of that play.
A guy who likes to play vampire with his friends in the nature of ““At first I thought you were just stupid and I wanted to stick my dick in your mouth to shut you up while I snorted a line off my new machete. Rae tells me that you are a Maiden and it’s your job to be kind of stupid and that I’m not supposed to have intercourse with Maidens. You shouldn’t believe everything that people tell you or you’re going to end up naked and sore, tied to the floor of a van marked ‘Free Candy.’””…. well that is a picture inside his mindset, regardless of how “pretend” it is.
The guy may be completely and utterly free from worry, but the appearance of it makes the difference.
Civil War reenactor who plays exclusively in the Army of Northern Virginia, because he’s managed to get the character just right or can’t afford all the accoutrements to be a switch hitter for reenactments… there’s no issue. Should that same reenactor however, begin displaying signs or giving commentary that might reveal his inner heart’s motivations are a deeper than simply historical exposition of defining episode of American History, but rather more like “hey, maybe the South should have won…maybe slavery, isn’t such a big deal”? Yeah… a line is crossed.
The line is gray and moveable for any particular subject. Like the Nazi reenactor… when reenacting WW2, certainly someone has to be the bad guys, and certainly guys who get good at portraying them will often end up doing so. But the line is much farther on the continuum if you see a hopeful politician consistently and eagerly seeking that role. A lot of this IS gut reaction… as most appearances of impropriety are. But that is OK, because, whereas we protect the innocent from being falsely convicted by allowing some guilty an easier acquittal, we ought to protect ourselves from fools in power by keeping the real dangerous ones out of office, by keeping some of the actually non-dangerous (but *could* be) out of office also.
BUT there can be no law compelling that… it does end up with the voter.
In this particular case Jack, I’d say he’s not trustworthy, just because of the nature of the commentary made during his make-believe sessions, not because he actually has a pretend hobby for fun.
Criminy…I should have proofread for coherence. I think Jack hashed out most of my jist in his discussion with Luke.
As I am so often, I am with texagg04 per his 11:50 am comment. I think…
I did a quick scan of the Rationalizations List and and did a quick re-read of the Non-Ethical Considerations. I have not read the comments here closely.
This question has probably been asked and answered here before, more than once, but my senility curses me, so I don’t recall:
Is it EVER ethical to decide based on the Ick Factor?
No. But we all do it anyway.
I would say, “Yes, because none of us should categorically deny ourselves a benefit of our own doubt, nor should we categorically deny ourselves the opportunity to risk a detrimental effect of our own doubt.”
Silly me: I consider “rationality” a subset of irrationality – that is, often good, sometimes mostly good or even all good, but not always better or best.
Whether it should or shouldn’t matter are fun debate topics, but the fact is it does matter. To me anyway. And probably to lots of other people. It’s weird and public and embarrassing.
But then we’ve recently had candidates for president who either put dogs on the roof of their cars or eat them. The ick factor has run up against the who-cares factor.
“It’s not the worst thing.”
Guilty.
I’m not prejudiced against LARPers. Some of my best friends over the years have LARPed! (Kidding, sort of).
I don’t have much experience LARPing myself: my nearest equivalent has been in the haunted attraction industry, where there’s a fair amount of cross over. I’ll refrain from posting an essay here about why haunts provide a valuable form of catharsis. If it needs defending, though, LARPing needs a different kind of defense, because as posters before me have pointed out the characters aren’t uniformly evil.
So on one hand, I want to reserve judgment on someone who blows of steam/flexes his creative muscle by playing van de Winst in his spare time. For me it’s not different than exploring horror or evil in art of any other media.
That said, this case triggers my ick factor. Partly it’s my own experience and prejudices, as I’ve known only a few LARPers/faux-vampires who I’d trust in a position of public office. In all fairness, this would hold true across most random samples of Americans.
Mostly, though, I’m put off the fact that this LARPer doesn’t seem to LARP very well. That, on top of how he’s handled the publicity, I think is a legitimate cause of concern.
The short version: I marked “other.” Because I might vote for a candidate who plays a vampire in his/her spare time, but I’m not inclined to vote for this one.
This. Though I suspect my issue is the fact that the sorts of people I dealt with were those who sought higher positions of authority in the Cam, which I found to be something that either required the person to be unethical, or quickly made them unethical.
To clarify, how well he LARPs isn’t immediately relevant to how well Rush would fill his role in public office. But it calls factors like creativity, communication, diplomacy and taste into question.
I’m not even sure this group is being ethical with their own people… Check out this email exchange concerning the authenticity of an auction they held in Austin recently. http://pasteboard.co/4rvaKXBiD.png