An interesting topic was raised on a radio show I was listening to.

The guest speaker was of the opinion that when celebrities do illegal things or 'bad' things, they should no longer be supported in their careers.

I disagree with this. My perception is more about the balance of giving credit where credit is DUE to everyone and holding everyone accountable. When someone breaks a law there is the justice system to hold them accountable and if they fulfill those requirements, in my opinion, they should be free to live their life and to earn their livings at whatever they are talented at.

Because if we only define people by the hole they dig in one part of their life, and never allow them credit or aknowledgement again in any other area of life, how do they dig themself out or become better?


This is why I buy R Kelly albums, or love Chris Brown performances. AFter all, If I needed heart surgery , I would appreciate having the best surgeon, I would not care if he had been convicted of domestic abuse or found to be a serial cheater in his relationships.


Do you think people should pay for their crimes and mistakes with their livelihood? Do you believe they shouldnt be supported in ANYTHING they do puclicly once they have done so?

Hi msH. I believe when a person has made amends and paid for their indiscretion or crime, they deserve a chance to better themselves and not have to continue to pay for it publicly or financially.

I'm sure there are historic examples of people who have made mistakes or committed crimes turning around and doing extraordinary and positive things for society after paying for their crimes.

I always try to look for the good and positive. Realistically, it's not always there to be found, but I still look for it.

I agree and disagree with your OP, msharmony.

I'll start with my disagreement because it is the least important.
My disagreement is the word choice you used.
"Credit where it is due"

Credit implies that something is owed. It also implies that repayment is expected. The credited knows they owe repayment to the creditor. Credit being due implies that the crediting agreement term has fulfilled as agreed upon. Thus, repayment is expected. A written or verbal contract.

I require no agreement from anyone on their behavior. If I idolize someone because of their career, it is a one way adoring gift I bestow on my impression of them. They are under no obligation to me to be anything. If they make a bad choice or a mistake it is their life. I don't assess famous people to determine their worth to me.
They are them, I am me.

Now for my agreement with your OP.

We are all the sum of our life experiences. We all make mistakes from time to time, it is vital to learning right from wrong.
The person I was decades ago is not the person I am right now.
Even laws have expiration dates (except some for certain crimes) and people change over time.
If everyone were held accountable for every mistake they have committed it would be a cruel harsh world to live in. Forgiveness is required to prevent stagnation.

Most importantly, I find that we must forgive ourselves first.
We have to accept our mistakes to gain wisdom.
It is also important to know that our acceptance or rejection of other people's behavior have no effect on their wisdom gained.
The only thing it affects is our impression of them and that doesn't mean a hill of beans.

Its a weird thing Ms . H.

Ive had to deal with some personal biases in myself , which ultimately impact the level of credit or pardon I can offer one person over another.

Take Bill clinton for example , who was a big womaniser and adulterer back in the day , and compare him with donald trump, who was guilty of the same thing.

Although I frown heavily on what Bill did, I continued to like him , and would probably get behind an initiative of his , despite his former indiscretions , but would struggle to do the same for trump, when they were both guilty of the same thing.

Maybe I think clinton is more charming and comes off as more genuine, but me supporting him, but rejecting support of trump may very well be based on a superficial personal bias... Im not applauding myself for this fact, but Im admitting the ugly truth

In theory, everyone deserves a second chance , but we all have our personal barometers of how "forgivable/unforgiveable " one offense is, as compared to another, or even what offender is more "forgiveable/unforgiveable " versus another, and I do think that impacts heavily upon those we give credit to or not, after an offense

Interesting assessment, peggy.

I see the 'personal barometer' as a multi-level gauge.
I see other people in a multi-level scale of importance to me.

The first thing I realize is that people are just people.
Each one is unique. Each one has good and bad traits.

With people that I am in actual contact with I determine their value to me and my impression of the world involving me based on their affinity towards their baseline traits. To establish that baseline it requires observing their traits and making an assessment as to their nature as demonstrated towards me.I allow for 'the bad day', 'the lapse of good judgement' and the 'learning mistakes' that people make while being alive. This is because I assess over duration.

I see famous people with less importance than those I am in personal contact with. For the most part, their traits have no direct impact on me or my impression of life. As long as they are doing the job they are supposed to do I don't really care what they are like as people.

A sports star is expected to be really good at their sport.
A politician is expected to be really good at making good policy.
A movie star is expected to be really good at acting.
A musician is expected to be really good at music.
And so on...

My personal barometer for those people is set to assess if they are doing what I expect them to do based on what it is they did to cause my adoration.

Fan is short for Fanatic.
I am not fanatical about any other person living or dead.
There are people that were famous that I admire for what they are famous for but not as a person, because, well, I don't know them that way.

Most of life is too complicated for me to make one-size-fits-all decisions like this. I'll mostly go case by case.

In most cases, it depends on various other things. Sometimes it's practical, like the idea that having the best surgeon, rather than the most respected member of the community, when someones life is at stake.

Sometimes it's a matter of pertinence, and even who is making the complaints about someone and why. The case of Bill Clinton's womanizing is a good example of that. The Republicans wanted me to support a sea change in the entire course of the United States government, as a way to punish Clinton for cheating on his wife. The fact that the leader of the effort in the House was cheating on HIS wife at the same time as he was leading the impeachment proceedings, made it all the more clear that the punishment was to be a lie.

But there are plenty of other examples which go the other way. When someone has been setting themselves up as an ideal of how to behave, as people such as Bill Cosby did, then when I find that their real example is a dreadful one, I DO support taking them out of the role they chose. I don't care how accurate and wise and effective a priest is about the meaning of the Bible, if they are abusing children as well. And don't even get me started on Mussolini, and getting the trains to run on time.

I guess the biggest thing I would most likely have found fault with, regarding the talk show guest, if they really did propose to take ANYONE'S livelihood away, is that being THAT blindly self-righteous is itself a heavy duty character flaw.

I agree with you tom . The personal barometer I talked about, is a multi level guage but sometimes its still punctuated with personal biases.

Ive seen some people stand by a mate who cheats for example but actively sabotage the person their mate cheated with or punish one child for a certain act but excuse the other offspring for the same offense or tolerate certain offenses from one friend but not from another.
And even when it comes to acquiring a service from someone , I ve seen some people choose charisma or their feeling of connectedness to a person's energy over the person's efficiency in a particular service. And that attitude permeates our assessment of celebrities or strangers as well at times.

We arent aware of it but our personal biases are often at play in our daily assessment of people's offenses and actions.

Again Im not applauding or condonung that fact.. just highkighting its existence

I understand that. I used to think life was too complicated for me as well. I've learned that life really isn't complicated, at all.
Life is just life. We are the ones that make it complicated.


Personal biases are inevitable because we are all unique. We all exist on a unique set of experiences that form those specific biases. Every stimulus we come into contact with is accepted or rejected based on our own morphing biases.

Your bias is neither good nor bad. It all depends on what you do based on your bias that is good or bad. I don't know about others but I make great efforts to control my actions despite my bias.
I am not a completely reactive robot of programming.
I can react different ways to similar situations based on my own decisions. My "knees don't jerk" as much as they used to.


Character flaws that don't directly affect me are not important.
I don't base my idea of the world on other people's character. Good or bad.

I hate rap music.
I have no commonality with the black population in my community as a race.
My barber is black and listens to rap music.
He is really good at cutting my hair.
He is the only one I have cut my hair.
Not because I favor him as a person in some way - I don't personally know him. He has never done me any wrong but I can't say the has never done anybody any wrong.
I select his services because he does what I pay him to do.

I sense that the baseline topic of this OP is discrimination.
Discrimination is known as a bad thing but it is rooted in discernment. When you discern you discriminate between two or more things.

The discrimination of determining someones personal worth to you is being separated between how that person is and how we expect them to be. The OP asks us to make a choice but the chaos of unique individuality makes any choice impossible. So we argue all our validity based on how we see things hoping that others might share our observations.

It is quite impressive that you would admit this Peggy. I tend to think Trump and Clinton both sucked as husbands.

I would not marry either one of them....lol

yet, I too am less likely to support Trump, NOT because of his infidelities, but because of his overall lack of knowledge or practicality and his 70 year long history of SELF focused overindulgence and lack of concern for anything not Trump.


Do you really think your reluctance to support Trump has any basis in his infidelities?

This is another interesting by product of accountability.

When it comes to others, especially those in the public eye, do THEY choose the image or the way we perceive them or do WE actually 'hold them up'?


Using your example, Cosby played many ROLES, he was an actor. In his public light he gave speeches about getting out of poverty and raising kids and PUBLIC behavior,all of which he has excelled at, none of which have anything to do with the type of crime he is accused of, but never proven to have committed.

As for the adulterers who wanted to go after Clinton. I am also on the fence. ON the one hand, I understand the seeming hypocrisy, but on the other maybe it is only SEEMING to be hypocrisy. After all, we can do things we know are wrong and risk getting caught but still know they are wrong. I feel hypocrisy is not so much taking the risk of getting caught doing something wrong that you publicly condemn, but feeling like that thing is NOT WRONG AT ALL precisely because you are the one doing it.

Consistency, for me, is a value system that marks right and wrong not based upon the who, but the what. If it is wrong for one, it is wrong PERIOD. If it is right for one, it is right PERIOD. EXCEPTION only being in regards to occupations and licenses that permit some with experience and education to do certain things for money that others cannot. Even that though, is more about something being illegal, more than morally 'wrong'.

My attitude/opinion about Cosby is not based on his character portrayals. It is based on his purposeful efforts as himself, to tell others how to live when it came to things like marriage. I quite agree with you, that actors who play a part, no matter how often, should never be expected to personally represent the characters they play, unless (again) they purposely proclaim that that's what they are all about.

Clinton's impeachment was a very particular case. He was NOT impeached for cheating on his wife. he was impeached for LYING ABOUT cheating on his wife, in a very particular setting, i.e. under oath to a Congressional committee. In an ideal situation, Clinton should have been found guilty, and some action taken, though not impeachment or attempt to remove him from office. However it was NOT an ideal situation, it was very clearly a situation where the Republicans wildly exaggerated the importance of the lie, and incorrectly claimed that it qualified as a "high crime or misdemeanor" under the Constitution. It did not.

In an ideal situation, everyone in Congress who ALSO lied under oath (which almost all of them have done, if you go by the strict definition of a lie that the Republicans attacking Clinton insisted on applying to him), would have also been tried and removed from office.

But we have never lived in an ideal reality.

I applaud your emphasis on consistency. In particular, I am upset regularly, by people who want to get away with saying that the wrong that their opponent committed, makes the wrong that they committed okay. If the surgeon, for example, commits a crime AND is the best surgeon, then he should go to jail for the crime. Not be let off, because he is otherwise useful.

This is why I buy R Kelly albums, or love Chris Brown performances. AFter all, If I needed heart surgery , I would appreciate having the best surgeon, I would not care if he had been convicted of domestic abuse or found to be a serial cheater in his relationships.


Do you think people should pay for their crimes and mistakes with their livelihood? Do you believe they shouldnt be supported in ANYTHING they do puclicly once they have done so?


R Kelly is being accused of running a sex ring or cult, while Hugh Hefner was an Icon for doing the same thing? So is a sugar daddy a Jon? A pimp? Is the recipient a prostitute or whore? These women are old enough to decide what they are doing and as it may be morally questionable is it illegal? And by the smell of R Kelly's sheets he's into some weird stuff.
About Chris Brown I think he got a bad wrap. The B pulled the keys out of the ignition while they were driving down the road which could have lead to a crash killing both if them, or worse yet destroying a Lamborghini and messing up Chris's face. Once that story broke he was under the spot light and screwed up a couple other times. But do we hold celebrity's to a higher standard? Or is it just because the are in the public eye. Everyone makes mistakes, but its the ones that think they are above everyone else that are the most annoying. Bad publicity is still publicity, if they can learn, and grow from their mistakes they can do good, but if their ego continues to control their actions they become more, and more annoying. We should probably be hearing about Charlie Sheen again any day now cuz he is one that can't control it.

This brings up one of the core things about this whole subject area. Some people start up seemingly idealistic campaigns against others, simply because they resent them having a good time. I don't know any of the details about R Kelly, whether he really is running a brainwashing operation, or just has a number of women around him who are okay with sharing him amongst them. I do know that Hefner was similarly attacked long ago, for a lot of the same basic reasons. Lots of people were mad that HE had multiple sexy and sexual women at his beck and call, and they didn't. He wasn't an "icon" in the beginning. He still isn't, to a hell of a lot of people.

But there's still times and people who it does make sense to boycott, for how they have behaved, because doing otherwise can directly imply support for their actions.

I used to get personally upset when certain despicable people, managed to get women who I was attracted to, to "entertain" them. But I eventually realized that in reality, when someone DOES go off with a really repugnant person, it's because they are NOT the kind of person I would want anything to do with after all. It wasn't the "bad guy/gal" who caused them to make the choice they did, it was they themselves. And as long as I can go on with my life unimpeded, let them have their fun.

Oh, and there's one more thing I wanted to mention, but forgot.

Sometimes it's not that I'm trying to boycott someone, after I find out something disturbing about them. A lot of the time, it's just that once I know, I can't forget about it when I see them "perform."

I understand that too. It usually happens with me IF I was not a fan of their 'talent' to begin with. I was never a big Angelina Jolie fan so her whole homewrecking thing just kind of took me off the fence into the area of non interest/non support.

It never happens if I already am sold on how talented someone is though. It seems easier to seperate their outward talents from their inward failings in that case.

I remember years ago I was told to boycott Johnson & Johnson. It had something to do with their religious views. I complied for awhile then I realized I don't really care what their views are - I liked using their products.

During the presidential campaign I read a lot of damning stuff about Planned Parenthood. I never had a high opinion of that organization in the first place but some of the information they provide is accurate and responsible. Just recently I quoted a page from Planned Parenthood. Not because I support them but because the information was accurate and interesting.

Robin Williams committed suicide. I liked his movies and thought he was funny. I am against suicide. I still like his movies and still enjoy watching him.

Cosby was funny. I've seen a few of his videos where he makes sense. He may have been a sexual predator but I still enjoy his comedy.

JFK was my favorite president. Many people would agree with me on that. JFK had a dark side as well. People don't focus on his dark side. I still like JFK even though I know more about him. I can't agree with many things he did but I still like him.

I liked Reagan, Nixon, Carter and Clinton. I liked some of what every president has done for our country but I don't actually know any of them so I can only judge how they affected me and I'm still alive so there's that.

Basically what this topic is exploring is
I don't like you and I'm going to get you fired and run out of town. Its an old game that will never end.

You can accept that or reject it. Personally, I prefer not to play at all.