You’d notice that YB Kit has always taken the high road of not being personal. He maintains the separation between public and private. He criticised Zaki Tun Azmi’s appointment to the highest judicial post but on what grounds? He mentioned first Zaki’s 5 step jump over the heads of many more senior judges in the judicial hierarchy without any intervening appintment as High Court or Court of Appeal judge. Kit also mentioned about Zaki’s prior position as UMNO’s legal counsel and his involvement in UMNO’s dsiciplinary board and intricate net work of corporate directorships – all of which give an appearance of conflicts of interest.

Never once did Kit criticise/oppose his appointment based on his repute as ladies’ man or his well publicised controversial marriage and divorce from his second wife Nor Hayati Yahaya half his age whom he married in a ceremony conducted by a kadi from Thailand in a textile shop in Perlis in March 2005.

That is the kind of “political decorum and ethics” that CSL speaks of in relation to the Opposition. We expect no less.

MCA’s politicians on the other hand have neither political decorum nor ethics. They engage in gutter politics. We hear of black gold triad infiltration. They have no qualms about dirty underhand tactics. Just to fight for power they have no compunction using someone’s filming CSL on the sly – itself a criminal act – to force him out of the political stage, nevermind shaming the whole party for having such a vice president in the process – not very different from the other side, for the sake of political struggle, trying to humiliate an internationally respected Malay leader by charge of sodomy before the whole world.

Look at the way parties/factions switch allegiances running up to MCA elections. It tells the whole story. No need to even recount 40 years of betrayal of their constitutency’s interest and subservience to Big Brother!

Thats what you get when you put political expedience above the principle of what is right from wrong. No wonder majority of Chinese desert it.

///What salient similarities are you talking about? One was filmed acting with sexual zest while the other was sleeping!/// – #49 page 1 Winston.

Yes while the other (Eli) was sleeping and unconscious of being photographed, are you suggesting that the other one acting with sexual zest was conscious of being filmed ????

///Outwardly, things may be forgiven and calm, but forgiven? You seem to lack any understanding of the psyche of women, especially Chinese women!/// -#49 page 1 Winston.

Well if you know the psyche of women better are we not entitled to judge them by their outward/ostensible public statement and conduct by which the wife in this instance had not only expressed forgiveness but also hugged and kissed the husband on his victory (photographed in media)? Or you say that you have a microscope to examine what’s really inside her mind that counts, that you could generalize that she’s like most other women whom you think cannot forgive, that she’s putting on a show? Are we judging people by their conduct as held out to the public or speculate what’s in the deeper recesses of their mind that we have no means of ascertaining unless we’re confidant to that person? Which is the reasonable approach?

When the scandal first broke you’d be surprised that in the blogs seemed to be harsher in their comments of CSL than women. You may want think about that.

On the question “What makes you think that UMNO gives a damn about the MCA? Or the other component parties in the BN?”

Well if they don’t care, then they take whatever the consequences. The last I recall they cared more about MCA Titi Tinggi assemblyman Yip Sunn Onn’s resignation than the MCA itself!

/// MCA has,it really amazed me far beyond my imagination that the delegates elected a pornstar to be its president. What did it show ?/// – #8 by frankyapp

Probably the delegates thought MCA needed a political erection! One hopes that CSL will be just as candid, accountable, honest and forthright about (say) probe into PZFZ as his admission of his tryst.

Yet what the delegates have done – giving the man ‘tainted’ with sexual scandal the presidency – is the first, a milestone in this conservative country.

We are not “liberal” as (say) the United States or Italy. [In the US, porn actress Stormy Daniels, with 150 steamy flicks in her name, is entering 2010 Louisiana Senate Primary Race against Louisiana Senator David Vitter in 2009. Her slogan: “Screwing People Honestly”. She promises an “Ultimate Stimulus Package”. It is not the first time. Earlier another Porn star Mary Carey ran for California governor against Arnold Schwarzenegger. Notwithstanding her size 36-D implants she lost! Over in Italy Hungarian-born Italian porn star Cicciolina was elected to the Italian parliament in 1987. Being so inspired Milly d’Abbraccio, a 44 year old surgically enhanced porn star stood as candidate for the Socialists in Rome].

This question of CSL’s eligibility to represent MCA as president, especially concerns as raised by his detractors, is not a simple black and white question.

Admitedly it is not easy to separate our lives into mutually exclusive boxes – one private and the other public. Many of us do adjudge by the way the politician/public official conducts his private life, ie sexual morality. He is after all custodian of public trust, and hence a role model for everyone and their children. So there’s a very strong argument that character and private morality do matter to a large extent, for it affects how a person/politician/official shape public/political policies. I mean it is often argued that if a married person could renege on his sacred commitment to his spouse by engaging in extramarital affairs, would he back his comitments to his constitutency? A fair point from that angle.

But there’s also a strong counter-argument that wherever possible we should separate the private from the public. It is the cornerstone of secular govt. that makes this separation. Thats what many of us fight for. In a theocratic state, there is no such line and private morality, whether of citizens or politicians, is as great concern to the Theocratic State and necessarily this impinges on the individual’s civil liberties and rights. In Secular value system, the question, to ask, is whether a person’s actions harm others, his private morality is his business. Thats because we place equal priority on being truthful, accountability as against hypocrisy.

So on these premises what’s the problem in a public official who whilst having “cheated on his wife” otherwise discharges his public duties faithfully and honestly harming none of his constitutents but actually benefiting them – compared to (say) another family man, 100% faithful to his wife and family, and yet, precisely because of that, engages in corrupt acts to enrich himself at public expense to benefit his beloved wife & family?

Ideally we will want a politician who is both exemplary in public as well as private conduct of his life/family life but are we living in a real world or dream world? Count with your fingers how many can you get. Most time you get a bunch of hypocrites which makes CSL’s frankness and owning up like a breath of fresh wind in an arid desert of defunct/failed politics!

Just 40 years ago, British Prime Minister – Harold Macmillan – famously said: “If you want personal morality, talk to a bishop, not a politician”! So leave it be. The delegates have made their choice by democratic vote. For better or worse, they also live with it.

On the question of ‘honesty’, I guess my ‘bias’, if one can call it such, is the implicit assumption that a high proportion of many married men, ordinarily considered by friends or relatives or associates alike as otherwise ‘honest’ in character and dealings can claim, with honesty, having not, one time or another in the course of their marriage, been unfaithful or committed adultery in relation to their wives.

Whether their adultery harms their wives and family is opening a pandora box of another debate. Suffice to say some cases “yes” and others perhaps “no”.

In Chua’s specific case, its a “yes” because of the publicity/embarrassment. But in other circumstances of tryst not been discovered/publicised, we cannot speculate whether wife suspected or knew about it. No wife would be happy but they might live with the situation. In any case she appeared, at least in public, to hold out ‘ostensible’ forgiveness of the spouse. Shouldn’t we hold her to that ostensible public display of forgiveness (what ever the real situation)?
Also isn’t a man like CSL entitled to forgiveness or another chance?

Besides this discussion of “harm” relates to private relations between spouses whereas the ‘harm’ I was talking about, in the context of a politician/official and its constitutency/public, is whether he is a competent and honest politician in the execution of his public official duties.

Mind you people vote him, in first instance, primarily for (1) his competence and honesty as a politician/public official – and not exactly for (2) his faithfulness, fidelity and honesty as a husband, though there’s tendency by many to equate (1) and (2), a sentiment I don’t share because we don’t know the domestic situtation and private relations. An emotionally challenged or difficult wife can drive many a man to the arms of other women and what I am saying is that we cannot morally judge who is ultimately wrong between the two as we don’t know the real situation.

We have to look at real life examples around whether one who betrays his wife (in terms of not keeping strictly to fidelity vows) is, from our experience and observation, necessarily likely to betray other people, including his colleagues and electorate, isn’t it?

It is true that one “may argue by some sort of generalisation that someone who steals from his dad is likely to steal from other people, including his electorate.”

But stealing is not (in context) parallel to or as natural to our biological make up as the imperative of testosterone driven sex, is it?

Even in terms of experience as learned from interacting with people: if you ask them is stealing is wrong, they say “yes” so the guy who does not conform to this moral admonishment is more deviant than (say) the guy who cheats on his wife who when he relates to his married friends they all say that they too have one time or another cheated on their wives without affecting their family lives, where they consider infidelity more a human weakness than a matter of serious moral turpitude.

(Continuing) From standpoints of humans, we’re neither angels nor devils. Depending on Nature versus Nature, Free Will versus Determinism, our capabilities to put up with do’s and the don’ts vary at all three levels.

Though “some may argue that their biologically entrenched desire for survival or/and material well-being drove them to steal” it is argued here that the instinct to have/enjoy sex is greater and more natural and urgent than that to steal, therefore making, on the average, matrimonial infraction at Civil level more understandable and hence less socially intolerable that acts at basic Criminal level. Which is why, returning to the original debate here, infractions at basic Criminal level are not tolerable as a measurement/benchmark of eligibility for public/political office whilst matrimonial infractions at the Civil level are, to many but certainly not all peoples, treated as matters relegated to private to be separated from public, and hence not (necessarily) an absolute disqualifying factor for public/political office.

Which could then also explain why certain political leaders like (say) Dwight Eisenhower, JFK cited in my posting #24 were/are still considered good or even great politician/leaders when their marital infidelity is well known.

Much depend on circumstances, like for example whilst no harsh judgment visited upon Dwight or JFK, the same is not true for Clinton doing it with Monica in White House and not admitting to it, that is considered by many a disqualifying factor, so to speak.

As far as DR CSL is concerned, he laid it out bare: “that’s me in the DVD, I am not prevaricating, I didn’t like Clinton do it in Ministry of Health, my wife had all along suspected if not acquiesced with my infidelity, in any case its with a long time 12 year friend and not common prostitute, in any case, I posit its a private matter between me and wife of which the public, in my view, should not hold it against me now after I have been “punished” by resignation from all posts when scandal was first exposed (not voluntarily by me but by a surreptitious criminal invasion of my privacy). Yes you can say I did not appear “remorseful” but that’s because my relations with spouse and the implicit understanding between us including acquiescence to my weakness is not something others are privy to or entitled to judge”.

Reasonably, he does not even expect others to all agree with his position. He does not say that all must necessarily agree – though he pleads for an understanding – but he hopes his forthrightness, candour in admission will mitigate the imbroglio. That’s why he keeps repeating in interview “I leave it to the delegates to decide my political destiny, whether my private life is more important than my public performance”. “It is up to the delegates to decide whether to accept my weaknesses and strengths,” he added. I think that that’s a reasonable position to put forth for a man in his predicament. As I earlier said, “apparently as far as 900 odd majority MCA delegates are concerned they think, on balance, his strengths outweigh weaknesses”, so he was voted in as MCA President notwithstanding the resurfacing of the scandal issue just before the ballot. That is their vindication of his position put forth on separateness of private from public, a kind of “forgiveness” as Ng Yen Yen said. What is there for the rest of us to press our moral judgment in these circumstances? I rest my case.

I should clarify that the above discussion are entirely (in context) based on premises of a secular state with secular politics/norms appreciating the ideal demarcation between private and public spheres of concerns, which don’t apply at all if (in context) religious norms and the position of a theocratic state are held paramount.

There are problems in this equation – marital infidelity is “morally wrong”, therefore cheating husband is morally wrong, his character is therefore morally dubious, therefore he is unfit for public office, a further pragmatic ground being if he could cheat on wife so he could cheat on electorate/public.

The 5 problems are:

1. There is no one yardstick marital infidelity is “morally wrong” that neglects circumstances/context. There are within morality various gradations, some very wrong morally, some fairly immoral, others immoral but nothing the rest of us should bother. I mean even “if 90% of the others are unclean (in sense that they don’t adhere to strict letters of marriage fidelity vows), even if logically that does show Chua is morally wrong, the fact if really 90% are guilty of the same thing, I think it is morally untenable for them to cast the first stone at Chua (just because he was caught unaware) by this holier-than-thou attitude on this issue!

2. The debate on this morality issue cannot be fully explored without necessarily dragging in a related issue of whether the institution of marriage itself, predicated on life long sexual exclusivity, interest and fidelity to the spouse, is realistic in its aspirations/assumptions. My personal view is that it is not. Why else we hear so many cases of adultery and divorce especially more in developed countries in which individuals stress on personal autonomy and happiness? That is however not to say there are not a fair number of married people who could be faithful and discipline their libidos better than others. Yet there considerable number of others who engage in clandestine adultery (whether personal/commercial) as a valve for sexual release in order to maintain the tolerance to continue the family relationship, if not for personal happiness then at least for well being of the children. What is lacking in terms of complete honesty in this respect is made up by other acts of generosity and consideration to wife and children. Often marriage vows on sexual fidelity are honoured more in breach than strict adherence, and if there are many many cases like these, do we assign marital infidelity as the most or least “immoral” within that range of gradations??? I think it would be the latter, to the extent that defaulters even by language say marital infidelity is human weakness as distinct from moral wrong.

3. In general it is not easy to just impute moral wrongness on marital infidelity without considering all circumstances. Just a few hypotheticals: what if even my spouse has other (occasional) lovers as well? What if on reaching menopause, she is not interested in sex and gains 20 pounds? What if, apart from the physical, both parties have out grown their love but stay together out of familial considerations especially welfare of children? There are multiple “what ifs” that mitigate (though they don’t cancel) the so called moral wrongness but which most of us who are not privy to the facts of that intimate relationship tend to pass judgment with alacrity, which itself is not right.
If Tiger Woods or for that matter (say) JF Kennedy cannot discipline their libidos, hence cheat on their wives, does it conclusively suggest they have higher propensity to cheat their colleagues and electorate in work or politics? I cannot say that it so suggests.

5. Its hard enough to get politicians who are competent and not corrupt. Ideally they should be moral & faithful husbands as well. To impose these criteria, can we get enough politicians to meet our ideal expectations? After all we not voting them in for priesthood – just politics, and we know how rough and tough the political game is.

Lets address this interesting poser by Wang Yen – “Suppose harm is a key consideration in moral judgment. Stealing from your father’s shop harms your father and his family (except you). Cheating on your wife harms your family. Why is the perpetrator of the former more culpable than that of the latter?” Why stealing from your father’s shop “More Culpable” than “Cheating on Wife” (given both are morally culpable)? There are two reasons:-

1. In part its answered in my posting #31 – “Though ‘some may argue that their biologically entrenched desire for survival or/and material well-being drove them to steal’, it is argued here that the instinct to have/enjoy sex is greater and more natural and urgent than that to steal, therefore making, on the average, matrimonial infraction at Civil level more understandable and hence less socially intolerable that acts at basic Criminal level.

I speculate from anecdotal experience that within a class of children taught not to steal less will be deviant and steal from their father as compared to the other class of “married men” in which more are expected to be “matrimonially in default” to commit adultery notwithstanding the solemnity of their marital vows.

When something like being 100% sexually faithful to wife is in reality more honored in hypocrisy than reality/practice, some would even consider the degree of “moral deviance” to be less than the other case in comparison.

2. Stealing from your father’s shop may lead to stealing from others shop (if one has no compunction stealing from one’s own father why would one be deterred in relation to others?) It therefore harms society.

In the other case if one cheats on wife, it only harms the immediate wife than the society (unless one extrapolates to say that it leads to divorce, and from there delinquent children leading to crime, which is too remote an argument to pursue since there are intervening factors that a cheating husband may not neglect children or family welfare and will always lead to divorce etc).
There are other mitigating circumstances stated in 3. of my posting #39.

Suppose harm is a key consideration in moral judgment (and I must add context, harm to public/electorate is key consideration in moral judgment of a political candidate’s eligibility), these two reasons will argue why the perpetrator of the former (theft) more culpable than that of the latter (marital infidelity).

Sorry to prolong the debate.

I would agree that in acknowledging first generalisation there is no logical reason to deny the second.

Whilst the first generalization (stealing from father shop that leads to stealing from wider society) is contemplatable, it is however not something easy, on basis of anecdotal experience, to verify. (In fact there may equally as many intervening factors, I am not sure, that may not lead inevitably to the harmful outcome of crime. Thats why generalisations in both cases have their limitations).

In respect of the second generalization – that if one cheats on wife, the harm may extend beyond the immediate wife/family to wider society in terms of divorce/fractured families and children delinquency – and whether this is true, this is more appropriately a matter for sociological studies to make a more authoritative inference than my layman’s opinion.

However just based again solely on anecdotal personal experience and what is observed of situations/outcome relating to relatives/friends/colleagues (committing adultery), the “harm” to society, at least in terms of delinquency, does not appear that apparent.

Indeed the “harm” to nearer significantly affected (wife) is also not that apparent especially in instances where adultery is clandestine, intermittent and unknown to or unsuspected by the spouse, and the primary marital relations is shielded by non-revelation. Blow-ups happen only where adulterous relationship is protracted, (often not commercial based involving sex workers) and therefore discovered but then again this depends on whether the one aggrieved (the wife) closes ‘one eye’ and acquiesces with the situation as some do for other compensations – the defaulting husband has status, provide financial security, a good father and except for his adulterous infraction is otherwise still a tolerable life partner, so to speak etc.

But whatever it is, and even if we accept the second generalization that adultery may lead to ‘harm’ on the wider society, some how it is not the kind of harm that, in terms of perception of severity of harm, will arouse as great a degree of moral revulsion/disapprobation/condemnation, as the cases of other crimes like theft in the first generalization, which is precisely why in secular context adultery is not treated a crime.

Then there is a question of nexus. Take for example MCA delegates, some of whom may be also unfaithful to the wives. I don’t expect they will draw a nexus between the candidate’s trysts/marital infidelity and his capability (what ever that is) as a party/political leader. Certainly the women delegates (and even Ng Yen Yen) don’t draw that nexus, otherwise they would vote for and support him. For those delegates who are also unfaithful husbands, they might not even share the view that CSL is necessarily a morally dubious character as evinced by the scandal, for to think so is to self incriminate.

Well likewise in wider society there are similar differences of opinion/perception on his moral culpability in relation to his eligibility for that post.

To assert that if one (a defaulter) breaches contract with wife one is therefore more likely to also breach contract with voters/electorate, it must pre-suppose that the defaulter views commitment to wife (as far as sexual faithfulness) the same level as commitment to responsibilities of political office. It is not necessarily they view both the same. (the “is” and not what “ought” to be the case situation).

We can then have a person who believe in being responsible politician/leader and yet compartmentalise and view infractions of occasional adultery is not big issue. Conversely we can have a totally devoted and faithful husband who as a politician has no qualms puting his hand in the till to beter the financial circumstances of his wife and family.

///Note that the second generalisation is not from adultery to harm on family, it is from betray of A to betrayal of B.///

Correct but it depends on how the relevant candidates think. For eg to us he’s ‘cheating’ wife by adultery but to him its may not constitute ‘cheating’ to him (if for eg there’s some implicit ‘understanding’ with wife that she closes one eye to the intermittent affair. Or it may be other reasons. We don’t know about people’s real domestic situation). We cannot draw the conclusions that he acknowledges, in his (not ours) scale of values that his adultery is “cheating” of wife, that he does care about breaching contract/oath in this marital context, and therefore has the same lackadaisical attitude of breaking contracts/oath in other contexts as well, all the same.

Also adhering to moral imperative (of not stealing) appears less stressful if for eg one’s financial circumstances are not that bad whereas the adhereing to moral imperative of being faithful to one’s wife could be more stressful even and especially for those of good financial circumstances) in view of continuous biological need/curiosity to expand one’s experience – and the availability of partners in todays easy mixing world.

“My anecdotal experience is quite different.” (I expect so) “But I won’t appeal to it since I’m aware that one’s experience on this matter is based by one’s social circle.” (You are right about this).