Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    >I think it's unfortunate that Gary got caught ...
    
    Caught doing what?
    
    Any assumptions being made here?
    
    -dave
    
    :-)

    I care very little about a person's sexuality.  It is my opinion
    that we as a society are overly concerned with it...and we tend
    to be like children when it comes to that facet of a person's
    personality.  
    
    What I am concerned about is who is going to be our next President.
    I recognize the fact that the presidency is a very demanding position
    and someone has to be very motivated in order to do a good job.
     
    One indication of how motivated a canditate would be if he were
    elected to the office is how much he is willing to sacrifice to
    get my vote.
    
    Gary Hart knows that a lot of people are concerned about his
    relationship with his wife.  If he wanted their vote he would have
    not invited the actress to his townhouse.  It seems quite apparent
    to me he was willing to risk votes for the opportunity to give his
    friend a book.  
    
    This error of judgment has lost my vote...because I don't think
    he wants the job bad enough and that is my first criteria.

	Confused of England ...

	Before this is moved to SOAP_BOX or whatever can I ask ..

	Do Americans ( in your opinion ), vote for the policies or
	the person ??

	Paul.

    
        In my opinion most Politicians marriages are not based on love-
    more on image. Mrs Hart is probably more upset because she wont
    get to be First Lady rather than Gary's possible extra marital
    activities.
    
        I would find that a sad way to live - but the desire to be in
    a position of great power is a very strong one.
    
    Steve
    

    re .4 ... some vote for one, some vote for the other ... and I think
    that many who vote for the Person believe that they are determining
    future Policies ....
    
    re .5 ... 
    >    In my opinion most Politicians marriages are not based on love-
    >more on image. Mrs Hart is probably more upset because she wont
    >get to be First Lady rather than Gary's possible extra marital
    >activities.
    
    Headin' for soapbox, but ... I would certainly be interested in
    hearing how you got these opinions!

    There is some discussion of this topic in WOMANNOTES (307, I think).
    I don't feel that the current discussion is appropriate for
    HUMAN_RELATIONS - H_R is for the personal aspect of human
    relations, not a general discussion of the media's love of gossip.
    
    					Steve

Even the moderator has asked me about moving this discussion to SOAPBOX.  
I see the trend the note is taking and I'd like to bring it around to my 
original intent and that is not to discuss Gary Hart per se, but the societal 
implications of the situation.  What does the situation tell us about US?
    
Do we as a society have a right to know, to the point of watching some-
one's front door, the sexual behavior of some people?  Are we as a society 
just sick little voyeurs who use excuses like political candidacy or "public 
figure" merely as justifications for our prurient desires? 

Suddenly we have Jim Bakker and Jessica Helm and Gary Hart and Donna Rice 
and the news reporters seemed to try like hell to make something of Oliver 
North and Fawn Hall.  Are our newspapers becoming "tabloids" and are we 
not only allowing it but encouraging it because of our voyeuristic desires?  
Let's face it, the National Enquirer DOES sell far more papers than the Miami
Herald.  Can you then blame the Miami Herald if they could get an incredibly
sensational story AND not even have to lie?  Did they have the right to allow,
(or order?), their reporters to watch the townhouse?  Does the public really 
have a ligitimate "right to know"?  I mention Reagan and Kennedy to illustrate 
that sexual morality does NOT necessarily indicate a person's fitness for 
office;  certainly no where near enough to warrant spying and tattling.
Why then do we continue to treat it as though it does?

Then there's the personal side of it and in this we can add the case of the
Tufts Professor, (I think his name was), William Douglas and the Combat Zone 
hooker, Robin Benedict, aka Nadine.   What about Douglas' wife?  What about 
Lee?  What about marriage in general?  What about money and power?  And what 
about Donna, the Phi Beta Kappa beauty queen who caused a national scandal?  
There's a great story in here if you focus on Donna's life instead of Gary's. 
But that will be looked at later.  Right now the Democratic front-runner's pos-
sible infidelities, (of which many, many of his constituents are self-righteous
and just plain jealous), is the national obsession and I for one think that's 
disgraceful.  

Why do people who strive for money and power do so?  What are the "rewards"?
One of the rewards is to buy the things that money can buy.  If we truly accept
that those "things" will be different for different people, then do we have the
right to judge someone else's "things"?  

Maybe you or I wouldn't buy a couple of days on a yacht with a sexy young 
"first mate" but if we had the money, power and looks Gart Hart has we would 
surely buy some "things" of our own.  Does anyone have the right to, a. spy on 
us and b. judge us on their findings?

If Gary's a not "good enough" to hold the highest office in the land, I 
suspect that will come out no matter what he does in his bed.

Lee Hart said last night, "If it doesn't bother me, I don't see why it should 
bother anyone else".  Amen.
    

    I looked for a similar discussion in Womannotes and Mennotes before
    entering this topic but didn't find any.  The title referring to
    Jane Fonda and the Globe somehow just didn't make me think that
    topic was about Gary, Lee & Donna.
    
    Great replies in that note.  Some of the best stuff I've read in
    notes.  Steve, you can write-lock this if you want.   If you move
    it to SOAPBOX it's on its own.  I don't read that file.
    
    Sandy

    I won't move this - I think that the points you bring up are
    worthy of discussion, and we can keep this open as long as people
    want to discuss the personal aspects.
    					Steve

    
    Re: 8
    
    As for Lee's statement "if it doesn't bother me, why should it
    bother anyone else"?....
    
    I don't believe a word of it....you're telling me this didn't
    bother her!!  Of course it did, what else was she supposed to
    say?  
    
    Jeanne
    

    Re: .11
    
    No, Lee is quoted as saying it didn't bother her.  We have no 
    business trying to second-guess her.  Trying to argue this is
    pointless.
    					Steve

    The base note and a further explanation of the motive of the base
    note describes a feeling I have had for a long time...some people
    and a larger percentage of people than I like to think about are
    more concerned with a person's sexuality then they are in their
    treatment of fellow humans.  
    
    I believe some adults have a concern about what happens in
    contemporaries bedrooms that equates with a childs concern about
    what happens in the bathroom.
    
    I must be too logical because I do not think that failure to control
    our sexual appetite to be an issue worthy of the visibility it gets.
    And I am talking about what is considered 'normal' sexual appetitie...
    not deviant behavior (children/animals).
    
    Sexual appetite and our need for food are governed by bioligical
    forces (hormones and neurochemicals).  If our partner were to gain
    weight it would be unthinkable to leave him/her but heaven forbid
    if his sexual appetite led him astray.
    
    I know there are issues around promises and free will....but I feel
    that so many of us are so insecure about our own sexuality that
    we tend to grasp at any information that might indicate that we
    are not alone.
    
    I view our preoccupation with other peoples sexuality as very
    judgmental and non-productive.  There are things about people that
    concern me more.

    Very well spoken Joyce. I think perhaps that Amercians are
    somewhat adolescant in this area. I would be curious to know
    if in European nations people are more relaxed in this subject.
    
    Bonnie

    re .14 - in some European countries, certainly, public opinion
    seems to be more relaxed about the sexuality of politicians and
    other public figures.
    
    Don't know that it relates to "age as a nation", though.   I was
    watching a TV item on AIDS in Africa the other evening, pointing out
    that these (very young) East African countries, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya,
    etc, have a culture featuring very active heterosexual promiscuity,
    including public figures etc, with no apparent public concern.   (This
    was cited as a problem in AIDS health education). 

    There are probably more significant factors - cultural rather than
    national (role of established religions, press media, etc), and also aspects
    of political processes and structure, leading to different reactions
    in different countries at different times.
    
    In recent British history, there have been differences in reaction to
    homosexuals in the secret services (harsh), an MP recently accused of
    homosexual sex offences (less so), and going back, the Profumo affair
    (harsh), Lloyd George's abundance of mistresses (no obvious scandal). 
                                                                   
    In some of these cases, the factor of media hysteria seemed relevant,
    and that's what seems to have happened to Gary Hart - not just hysteria
    about the incident, but the hysteria (or "emotional climate") he had
    started to promote, as part of his presidential campaign. The "new
    image", the "man of new ideas" seems to have been vulnerable to a
    backlash effect.   Was he maybe even set up for it by political
    opponents?
    
    As to whether the American public should pay attention to this kind
    of thing, there is the problem of how else you differentiate your
    political candidates, in a system where large amounts of publicity
    are required (to cover the whole country) and where there is
    little ideological difference between parties.   This may lead to
    an unhealthy focus on some aspects of candidates' private lives,
    where it can be related to other publicity activity, for or against.
    
    I'd say the healthiness of our interest in the sexuality of public
    figures (USA/UK), is a bit different from the same interest in the
    lives of private individuals.    With public figures, it's maybe not
    pleasant, but it's mediated by the press, by culture, and by fashion,
    and it may be part of limited information in assessing the character
    for a one-off election-day choice.   With private individuals we
    usually have more time to consider their other behaviour, if we're
    interested in them at all. 

This is nothing but my own two bits worth, but here goes: 

I couldn't care less who Gary sleeps with, be it Lee, Donna or John
Doe. What I do care about is: what kind of President could he be? I
do not think there is a demonstrable correlation between one's
sexual inclinations and/or appetite and one's ability to run the
country. 

This incident --as painful as it is to Hart-- should serve as a red
light to us all. This is what we get for allowing the Ed Meese
mentality to exist and spread. 

Someone back there wondered how Europeans would respond to this.
This brings back memories of a similar scandal in Israel, in the
early seventies. Moshe Dayan, Ex Chief of Staff, Ex Minister of
Agriculture and current (then) Minister of Defense, had an affair
with a girl half his wife's age. That was no great surprise (the
man's sexual prowess was legend), except that he was as indiscreet
about it as one could get... 

In a cafe in the center of then fashionable district in Tel Aviv,
someone had posted a large sign. It read as follows: "Dayan has
screwed the Arabs. Why shouldn't he be allowed to screw at home?". 

-- Ron 

    
    Russian, "Mester Hart, have you committed 1500 warheads to production?"
    
    Hart, [long pause] "I don't have to answer that question!"