Lets Bring Back Shame

In which your humble narrator gets his scold on and rants about the sheer ugliness of the ethical egoism that permeates modern life.

What ever happened to shame? Having been raised by quasi-hippies with a wide puritanical streak, I seem to have this unpopular notion that when you do stupid/evil/nasty/rude/hypocritical things, you should experience shame. Good ol' Pascal said "the only shame is to have none." Of course Blaise was a little too in love with his ability to turn a phrase, but I admire the sentiment none-the-less.

This week we have a president seemingly torpedoing his own agenda because he's now only got +18 majority in the Senate. From the New York Times Caucus Blog:

“If there’s one thing that I regret this year,” Mr. Obama said, “is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values.”

Goodness. Mealy-mouthed are we? This sounds like the trite response to the "what's your greatest weakness" job interview question.  "Oh gosh, America, I was just too darn focused on getting things done that I abdicated any responsibility for putting pressure on Congress to accomplish anything. Also I never bothered to communicate what it was that I wanted from a health care bill. I let opponents define the bill because I was too busy gettin'-r-done. Then I let the process drag on so long that Teddy Kennedy's seat is now held by a formerly nude Republican." Spare me the verbal curlicues, you tragic weiner.

Then there's our illustrious Supreme Court's conservative wing's (the one that has traditionally railed against judicial activism) decision to throw our 100+ years of precedent in a sweeping ruling where none was required. This was of course, not hypocritical. Just ask Antonin Scalia, he'll tell you so. Don't question him or he'll make a rude gesture to distract you while Dick Cheney sneaks up to shoot you in the face.

And last, on an entirely non-political note, what's up with the line-cutting, people? I frequently have middle aged persons try to cut in front of me in line. Are you all graduates of the Ayn Rand School for Tots?

Have you no shame?