How much trouble would you be in as a political candidate?

[blackram]

Well, with the Toronto Sun waging smear campaign against Jack Layton of the NDP, alleging that he's been at a massage parlour:

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/04/29/layton-found-in-toronto-bawdy-house-former-cop

A good question might be, how immune might one of us be from such smear campaigns, if we were running for public office? I think I know the answer in the case for most members of this board, but it's fun to see how well we think we've hidden our tracks.

 

[jimjac]

I go twice a month and my insirance pays fo it whats the problem if they published that I would sue thier ass off as my medical files are private

 

[OnTheWayOut]

Jack just won a lot of votes from middle aged guys who don't get enough at home ... and Terb members! LOL

 

[FatOne]

I'd be dead, but not from the hobby. I am unrunable for any party.

For one thing when it comes to personal actions like the drugs or the whores I lean strongly libertarian. If you love the whores, don't run for an anti whore party. Whats next, white people joining the Black Panthers. So any party I would run for, the hobby aspect would not be an issue. I would be in trouble if I ran for the Marijuana party though as I've never used and that would be a scandal .

 

[freestuff]

"Alleging?" I thought it was true. Didn't JL basically admit it?

 

[blackram]

"Alleging?" I thought it was true. Didn't JL basically admit it?

The cops never charged him with anything, at that time. They cleared him. Some ex-cop decided to reveal a factoid that wasn't chargeable, to make it look like something illicit was going on. It's guilt-by-association.

 

[Anynym]

The cops never charged him with anything, at that time. They cleared him. Some ex-cop decided to reveal a factoid that wasn't chargeable, to make it look like something illicit was going on. It's guilt-by-association.

The NDPs lawyers freely admit that Layton was in a massage parlour. What they don't admit is that he partook of illicit services while he was there. (There was some evidence that he did, but johns were not the target of Project Cobra.)

And while they did not lay any charges, neither did they "clear" him.

And it is simply not credible for a City Councillor to claim that "Velvet Touch Massage" was a "clinic" staffed only with Registered Massage Therapists.

 

[blackram]

I'd be dead, but not from the hobby. I am unrunable for any party.

For one thing when it comes to personal actions like the drugs or the whores I lean strongly libertarian. If you love the whores, don't run for an anti whore party. Whats next, white people joining the Black Panthers. So any party I would run for, the hobby aspect would not be an issue. I would be in trouble if I ran for the Marijuana party though as I've never used and that would be a scandal .

My assumption is that there's no such thing as privacy any more these days. We're being tracked on our iPhones, we're being tracked on our PCs, and there are ways to get access to all of that information even without being law enforcement. As such, I'm probably ineligible for public office as I wouldn't pass the scrutiny of a 19th century morality in a 21st century world. In the 19th century itself, I would've probably been able to hide my indiscretions, and been able to run for office. But we've had 2 centuries of technological evolution, with zero centuries of moral evolution, and morality can't hide from technology anymore.

If going to a masseuse or SP was as acceptable as going for dinner, then we wouldn't care if the technology could track us going to one of these places, anymore than if it was public knowledge when we had our dinner every night.