Yesterday I wrote about the group involved in hacking Ashley Madison, the website devoted to married couples interested in starting an extra-marital affair, had released the information they stole (You can read about that here).
Let’s be clear here: What that hacking group did was illegal. They deemed themselves entitled to not only break into this (admittedly rather sleazy) business’ private servers and steal all their data but also morally superior enough to release this material to the public at large.
That’s not to say I’m defending Ashley Madison or their clients. As I said, the website boasts the ability of supposed married individuals to hook up with other supposed married individuals. The clients who frequented the site were clearly hoping to find action outside their married life.
Having said all that, I wondered how long it would take before some “big” names were linked to the service. It took all of one day and the “winner” is…
Conservative Family Values Activist, member of the now defunct reality show 19 Kids and Counting, and alleged molester of five young women (including four of whom were his sisters) Josh Duggar. The story:
http://gawker.com/family-values-activist-josh-duggar-had-a-paid-ashley-ma-1725132091
One of my all time favorite quotes comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson and it goes like this:
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Putting aside (if at all possible) the whole Ashley Madison stuff for the moment, what is it about those who are the ones most engaged in public moralization that makes them so ripe to be involved in actions that run counter to their oh-so-loud moralizing?
There’s nothing new under the sun regarding hypocrisy, of course, yet one can easily lose track of the number of people, from senators to congressmen to clergymen to business leaders to what-have-you who talk one way yet whose actions are decidedly opposite of what they preach.
Which names will we find in the list tomorrow?