Lots of folks (not so much on LJ) are talking about Cunningham's resignation from the House after pleading guilty to taking more than two million dollars in bribes. And as someone who votes Republican more often than not, maybe I should say something too.

Good.

Good that he was caught. Good that he is going to be punished. Good that he is gone.

I have no patience for bribe-takers in either party. I want them all gone, because we can't afford them as a nation, not just because they cause us to make arguably bad decisions -- I suppose you can bribe someone to do the right thing, although that probably isn't the normal case -- but because they corrupt the process in a way that increases the cynicism of the public and leads to a failure of support for the democracy that we have.

Now, you may ask yourself, "How can someone like Cunningham think that he'll get away with this?" Part of the answer, I'm sure, is that many people do get away with it, but I think there's more to it than that.

There are many people out there in the world -- and surely you've run into them -- who believe that they are somehow smarter or better than the rest of us and that because of that they are entitled to take things that are not theirs to take. I've seen them here at work and I've seen them in fandom too. By God, they should have these things and no one's going to be really hurt if they take them and if they should happen to get caught, well, they'll find a way to skate past it, because they've always figured out how to skate past it before.

I do not like these people. (I'm sure that doesn't come as a surprise to you.) And I certainly don't want to associate with them.

How about you?