Standards

There are those who believe that with great power comes great responsibility. Then there is the ruling political party of the United States.

Who does the Republican Party believe must be held to the most stringent and unforgiving standards of personal and professional conduct?

• Immigrants unfamiliar with our system of laws who may have made a minor procedural error while trying to start a new life here legally.
• Voters in minority neighborhoods who did not bring proper personal identification to the polling sites.
• Teenagers who commit crimes after growing up in poverty and broken homes.
• Young people who join the military due to a lack of other opportunities.
• Poor people who cannot afford to pay cash bail.
• Black people who made furtive movements in sight of the police.
• Women who become pregnant by accident.
• People who cannot afford the cost of health care.

And who does the Republican Party believe must be granted every benefit of the doubt, treated with infinite understanding, and held to the most forgiving standards of personal and professional conduct?

• Wealthy white teenagers whose crimes can be chalked up to youthful indiscretion.
• Law enforcement officers whose shootings of innocent people can be chalked up to having a tough job.
• Multibillion-dollar corporations whose violations of financial and environmental and labor laws can be chalked up to our hard-to-understand thicket of regulations.
• Millionaires whose strategic tax evasion can be chalked up to putting their faith in professional advisers who they thought would do the right thing.
• Aspiring Supreme Court justices whose perjury can be chalked up to human nature.
• Officials entrusted with the power to start wars, whose decisions leading directly to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people can be chalked up to faulty intelligence.
• The President of the United States.

Different people think about responsibility in different ways.