Simple Right and Wrong

Last night while watching the news my medical student daughter turned to me and said that her biggest disappointment has been to realise that her image of adults as mature, intelligent beings is shattered almost daily. She had thought that adulthood would free her from the schoolyard shenanigans of her youth.

This outburst was triggered by a report on how some former ministers who are still currently MP's in the UK Parliament are either actively engaged in lobbying for business or are trying to position themselves to do so for when they leave Parliament.

The rules clearly say that ex-Ministers must wait 12 months before they engage in lobbying. The accused all deny wrongdoing.

I spent years discussing with my children good and bad; right and wrong. The goal was to instill a moral compass. I wasn't trying to create good Samaritans, but rather to provide a framework, which I am sure somehow morphed into a belief that the adult world was a righteous one.

Watching ex-Ministers decry their innocence while caught with their hands in the till reveals a different reality.

Scroll forward to the passage of the Health Care Bill in the US and listen to Newt Gingrich describe this bill as political suicide-and then compare it to the passage of Civil Rights Legislation under LBJ which he also described as political suicide.

What planet is Mr Gingrich on? Is he seriously suggesting that LBJ was wrong to enact Civil Rights legislation which essentially granted all Americans the rights theoretically safeguarded in the Constitution?

Contrast this sentiment with President Obama's invocation to vote for Health Care: "Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country,” he said. “This is one of those moments.”

Regardless of your views on the Health Care Bill, here is an adult beseeching politicians to essentially do what they think is right. Not what will get them elected; not what will further their careers; but to actually do what we all do when we enter the polling booth-vote our conscience.