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Thursday, November 15, 2012

Addicted to Scandal

There seems to be a trend growing in the United States in which more and more of our high profile citizens are being caught in scandals of their own design.  Thus far, there seems to be a 1-2 year cycle in which we have a glut of scandals discovered and reported on, and then a break for a while before the next one pops up.  This latest one is somewhat disturbing if only because it involves high level officials in the CIA, military, and FBI.  Reading through the news and hearing the latest reports on the radio, you would think we were living in some sort of twisted romance novel complete with affairs, stalking, investigations, but as yet, no conclusion.  One might attribute the latest set of affairs/scandals to these men having a sense of invulnerability due to their position of power.  Or it could just be that these men have no self control and would rather just risk their jobs and married lives for a quick fling of a few years or less.  Perhaps what is most worrisome is that the main individual implicated in this latest scandal is, or should I say was, the head of the CIA.  That means he is in charge of all the covert operatives or spies in this country.  Yet he couldn't figure out how to keep an affair hidden.  On top of that, you have reports of a four star general being implicated in another affair and to top it all off, an FBI agent sending pictures of himself shirtless to a woman.  It all speaks of stupidity to me.  Maybe it is the fact that these men operate with a certain feeling of impunity, allowing them to do what they want without getting caught.  Unfortunately, it seems these men forgot they are living in the 21st century with technology that stores and holds every little bit of information you transfer through its far reaching tentacles.  Whatever the reason, these men were caught, and should certain information come to light that they compromised the security of the United States through their romantic trysts, then they should be prosecuted as such. 

Their affairs, in and of themselves, are destructive only to their families.  However, with the case being made that potential security secrets and information were passed through these affair channels, the destruction they might have caused is far reaching and of great cause for concern.  It seems what these men failed to realize  in their positions of power is that anything they do could come under scrutiny.  Heaven forbid they click on the wrong file when sending an email to their "lover" and military plans are suddenly passed along to ordinary citizens.  That is not acceptable.  Thus far, we don't concretely know if any of that happened, but it is entirely possible given their positions.  As this whole affair/scandal is still developing, we must take a little time to look back at other instances of affairs and scandals over the past few years.  The first thing anyone should notice is that the main perpetrator in all of these high level affairs are men.  Noticing that brings to mind a very important question, namely, why is that nearly all of the affairs and scandals we hear about involve men as the "cheater"?  As I was listening to the radio on the way to work yesterday, one of the radio show hosts offered a possible explanation.  He said that men, since the beginning of time, have been programmed, or have it in their genes, to hunt and reproduce.   That drive to reproduce is what causes these men to turn to other women as a source of pleasure or potentially to reproduce.  Now we all know that their intention is not to reproduce, rather, it is to engage in an act that brings them pleasure.  However, with that underlying drive to find a suitable mate and fornicate, it seems that some men can't deny the urge and despite the cost to themselves and their families, will proceed with said action.  I partly agree that that urge to find a suitable mate and reproduce is inherent within men, but as we have progressed in society, most of us have learned self control.  Namely, we don't need to reproduce in order to keep our species alive.  I think we are pretty well established and quite frankly, don't need offspring from extramarital affairs.  That self control, I think, is something that most men learn, yet some can not help disregarding.  If we look at the latest individuals involved in these affairs, we will notice that the main 2 are military. 

Before I go into my last potential explanation, let me first state that I respect men and women in the military for what they do.  I don't necessarily agree with it, but I respect them.  That being said, when someone goes through military training, one of those base instincts which most of us have is nourished and made to inhabit the core of who these people are, namely, the instinct to hunt, kill, and defend.  Is it any stretch of the imagination to think that with the fostering of this one basic instinct, the other instinct to reproduce and find a suitable mate is also fostered?  It may or may not, but I do think that by training men and women in the main task of killing another human being, we are bringing a basic instinct embedded in almost all humans to the forefront of who they are and by doing so, probably bring along with it other basic instincts.  Regardless of why they did what they did, it happened and now they have to deal with the consequences.  I am still shocked that these high profile individuals, trained to keep secrets, were caught.  Does that speak to the state of security in our country?  I sure hope not because if their actions, or inability to keep their actions secret, says anything about the current state of our intelligence agency and military, then we have great cause to be worried.  I will lean towards the optimistic side on this one and say that I think that while these men were caught, I don't think it is necessarily indicative of the general security for our country.  In essence, it is just another affair/scandal that is being thrown all over the news.  My heart goes out to these men's families, not them, and hope that their families are able to move forward without too much disruption.  I guess we will have to wait another year or two for the next big affair scandal to come to light.  I can guarantee one thing, it will happen.  Men in power in this country have no ability to control themselves.  OK, most do, but there will always be the stupid ones who like to philander around and will eventually do something stupid and get caught.  Needless to say, they deserve to get caught.

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