Opinion
[OPINION] What’s good for the goose is good for the, umm, president?
WASHINGTON, D.C. (FNN NEWS) – The country has been buzzing the last couple of months with discussions, along with shock, about the many men that have been accused of sexual misconduct either at work or play. These men are power players among the elite. In a previous article, I listed the accused who ranged from the worker to the executive.
Many of the victims who have come forth have provided claims and information that has lead to firings, suspensions, resignations and investigations. Men have been removed from their posts at media outlets, sports broadcasting, acting, directing, law makers, and even our favorite chefs.
It shows that America is saying “NO!” to the inappropriate actions of men towards women, other men, and children. So, basically, it does not matter. Everyone is or has been at risk of being a victim to such harrassment.
In our political arena, we have seen Al. Franken (D-Minn, above) resign from the U.S. Senate and John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich, below), the longest-serving member of congress, step down due to allegations of sexual misconduct. Multiple women have have made accusations against both. They were urged by their democratic colleagues to step down.
It seems that the #MeToo movement has picked up great momentum and almost daily we have seen new reports of allegations surface. Those recently accused are hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, celebrity chefs Mario Batali and Johnny Luzzini, just to name a few.
Time Magazine has recognized “The Silence Breakers” as its Person of the Year, featuring the women behind the movement. America has rallied behind the accused and stands up to applaude their strength as they come forth and expose those unwanted actions inflicted upon them years ago.
It seems this is a good thing and society is showing them its support. However, it appears we are hitting a wall when it comes to Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama.
Moore has been accused of harrassment and conduct involving several women when they were teenagers, one being only fourteen years old at the time. Roy Moore has denied all accusations and repeatedly insists not knowing any of the accused. The accusations have divided the state of Alabama, as well as the thoughts across the country, as to why Moore did not drop out of the race.
Though urged by Republican leaders to renounce Moore’s run for the Alabama Senate seat, President Donald Trump has come out to show full support of Moore and even urged voters to vote against Moore’s challenger, Democrat Doug Jones.
Trump’s support of Moore comes in contrast to his denouncing Conyers and Franken regarding the accusations against them. Trump himself was under fire during the 2016 election when seventeen women came forth and accused the presidential candidate of sexual misconduct. We also heard Trump himself on a recorded video of an “Access Hollywood” tape boasting about groping and kissing women. Trump has also denied that any of the women were truthful and that he did not know any of them. He also recently challenged the validity of the “Access Hollywood” video. This comes one year after he commented that his language on the video was him just sharing “locker room language.”
Now it seems that Trump is on a mission to push the democrats out of office. His show of support for a Republican running for office, who bears the same kind of accusations, has reopened some wounds and shaken many of those women who came out and accused Trump during the 2016 election. Those women are saying that they feel forgotten and overlooked and want to know why the Republicans and our president can point a finger at others but ignore their own actions. Even U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” stated that “those women who have accused president Trump of sexual harrassment and assault should be heard.”
Haley told host John Dickerson that women who have accused Trump have “every right to speak up” and “we should all be willing to listen to them.” But what does that mean? Does that go anywhere? Will they be heard? Will Trump step down from office as he urged democratic politicians to do?
With the way things are going and the response from our president, it leads one to wonder if “what’s good for the goose” is good for the, umm President?
Opinion
Commentary: Civility as Moral Power: What Gandhi Gave King — and What King Gave America and the World
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did not merely change laws. He changed the moral tone of a nation.
At a time when America was convulsed by racism, violence, and injustice, Dr. King chose a path many dismissed as weak or naïve: civility, nonviolence, and disciplined love. History proved otherwise. In King’s hands, civility was neither politeness nor passivity. It was moral power.
That power did not arise in isolation. King drew deeply from the life and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. While studying theology and social ethics, he encountered Gandhi’s doctrine of satyagraha — the “force of truth.” What struck King most was Gandhi’s insistence that injustice must be resisted, but never with methods that corrupt the soul or mirror the cruelty of the oppressor. King later called Gandhi “the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.”
From India’s struggle against British colonialism to America’s fight against segregation, the moral logic was the same: suffering willingly endured, without hatred or retaliation, can awaken the conscience of a nation. Nonviolence was not weakness; it was moral jiu-jitsu — exposing injustice by refusing to cooperate with it, while refusing to become it.
For King, civility did not mean silence in the face of injustice. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, he made clear that unjust laws must be broken — openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. Like Gandhi, King rejected both cowardly submission and violent revolt. His method of nonviolent civil disobedience was precise and intentional: it disrupted injustice while preserving the moral legitimacy of the movement.
This moral lineage from Gandhi to King remains one of the most remarkable transmissions of ethical philosophy in modern history. Different cultures. Different continents. One moral grammar. Both men believed that love is a social force, not merely a private virtue; that hatred multiplies hatred; and that the means we use to pursue justice shape the society we ultimately create.
When children were attacked by fire hoses in Birmingham and peaceful marchers were beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, it was not rage that moved the conscience of the nation. It was the devastating contrast between the dignity of the protesters and the brutality of their oppressors. Civility gave the movement credibility. Nonviolence gave it legitimacy. Moral discipline gave it victory.
Neither Gandhi nor King was “nice” in the shallow sense. Both condemned injustice relentlessly. Both disrupted the comfort of the powerful. Yet neither surrendered to cruelty or dehumanization. They understood a hard truth: a movement that loses its soul cannot save a society.
Today, in an age of outrage, humiliation, and political tribalism, their shared example speaks with renewed urgency. We cancel rather than persuade. We humiliate rather than debate. We dehumanize rather than disagree — and we call it authenticity.
Gandhi and King would have rejected this moral downgrade.
They would remind us:
That cruelty is not courage.
That rage is not righteousness.
That humiliation is not justice.
Gandhi lit the torch. King carried it across an ocean. Now it rests in our hands.
To honor them is not merely to quote them once a year. It is to practice what they practiced: to resist injustice without surrendering our humanity, to speak with moral clarity without moral cruelty, and to pursue change without poisoning the future with hatred.
Their revolution was not only political.
It was moral.
And it remains ours.
Hon. Rick Singh is a former Orange County property appraiser and a civic leader in Central Florida. He writes on ethics, public service, and democratic culture.
