In another post yesterday, I flagged a truly idiotic and dishonest (or ignorant) cartoon posted by a history professor, of all people. (Steve did an excellent job fisking the stupid thing—thanks, Steve—in another superb comment.) My old historian friend subsequently conceded that the cartoon was crap, and I assume, if I pressed him on it, he would protest that he didn’t endorse the false facts, just posted it as “speaking for itself.” But the cartoon attracted all manner of “likes” and dumb anti-Trump comments, and my freind knows his bubble. He deliberately abused his perceived authority as a historian to pander to the mob. I called him out on it. He is abashed. He should be.
Obviously President Trump is the most prominent example of an influential public figure who too frequently is absurd. The only metaphorical silver lining in that cloud is that he so often does it for effect that not everyone takes him seriously every time. Still, too many do, or in the case of his fanatic foes, choose to pretend that he’s serious when they know he’s not.
There is no silver lining when the leader of the Democratic party in the House says, as Rep. Jeffries did last week, “The last thing that the American people need is for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalize or in some instances kill them.” A sane party would demand that the House Minority leader retract that absurd statement. A sane Congress would rebuke him. A sane voting public would reject a party that has such a lying creep as one of its leaders.
One admirable aspect of Queen Elizabeth’s long reign was that she recognized the importance of being careful about what she said. King Charles appear to have learned from her example: he was a royal loose canon in his youth, but has avoided absurdity nicely since ascending the throne. The King of England, the Pope and the Dalai Lama hold the oldest positions of power and influence in the 21st Century world now. Two of them have the sense and the ethical compass not to abuse their posts. The third, by not following their example, is proving that his position not only does not deserve the influence it still holds, but also that that influence is dangerous.
Ethics Alarms 
Genesis 19:24
I wonder how the pope feels about this part of the bible?
I think he’s on record of wanting to ban weapons that turn people into salt….
First aerial bombing, now a salt weapon???
Well, don’t forget the SALT treaty….
Honk! Honk! Wocka! Wocka!
Heh, in spite of my comprehension lapse yesterday, I got that one !
Not sure about Jack, he may have to say it out loud 😉
Late to this discussion, my apologies. The Pope does indeed have moral authroity over the faithful. However, the faithful are responsible for their well formed conscience. This concscience cannot not be violated, by anyone, even the Pope.
“A well formed consciende is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according ot reason, in ocnformity wiht the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator…The education of conscience is indispensable for human being who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judement and to reject authrotiative teachinings.” [Catechism #1783]
Man is sometime confronted by situation that make moral judgments less assured and decsion difficult…to this purpose, man must strive to interpret the data of expereince and the signs of the times assited by th evirtue of prudence, by the advice of competetn people, and by the help of the Holy spirit and hsi gifts.” ]Catechism 1787-1788]
If by example the Pope encourages political activism from the pulpit, in America at least, he risks the devastating loss of religious non profit tax status.