Keep Right – Column by Ralph K. Ginorio
“Character is what you are in the dark!” The first time that I heard this axiom was in a throwaway line of dialogue from a movie that I saw in High School (“The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension,” 1984). It was delivered by a Benito Mussolini-type alien warlord in a loudspeaker announcement in the background of a scene featuring the heroes infiltrating an enemy alien base.
Because it is true, this quote has vividly remained in my memory over the past forty years. Who we truly are, who we allow ourselves to be is revealed only when we believe that we are under observation by no other human being. Without reward or punishment and absent our endless efforts to earn status and save face, what we will permit ourselves to do while alone is a splendid indicator of the genuine state of our inner self.
Do we cheat when playing solitaire? Are we abusive to the dog or nasty to the cat? Are we slovenly, selfish, lazy, and prone to vice? Are we conspicuously different alone than when we are with companions in public?
For all of us, I suspect that (minus the cruelty to our beloved pets) the answer may very well be “Yes!” Participating in human society requires that we each wear a mask. The more we exert ourselves among others, the more we may crave some alone time. It is only natural for every one of us to wish to just relax sometimes and let our hair down.
So, solitude is a normal and necessary psychological release valve. Even Jesus needed to retreat to the mountaintop to restore himself between bouts of healing, teaching, and proclaiming. Rather than binging on bad food and worse television programs, Jesus spent his restorative time praying in the high places with a very few Apostles. Even he, who loved individual human beings and humanity as a whole, needed to be “off stage” sometimes.
Certainly, no sane person really wants to know the details of how fellow adults might blow off steam in their most private moments. However, there are some revelations about our would-be leaders that we should seek out.
Are some of our society’s most prominent and successful people folks who indulge in things that are beyond the pale? Do some among the wealthy and powerful use these advantages to engage in acts that are both criminal and perverse?
The answer is of course, yes. After all, a cynical person might say, why be a member of a most exclusive elite if you can’t taste of some variant of forbidden fruit? Isn’t it a perquisite of power to use it to access sensations and experiences unobtainable to the vast bulk of humanity?
I am no puritan. I lack the essential commitment to a singular standard of virtue that characterized that group of earnest believers. Within the broadest limits, I do not object to other adults using their free will as they will. I genuinely believe in privacy and in freedom of choice. I believe that many virtuous and wise people adhere to variant faiths and philosophies of virtue that are not my own.
However, as with every type of freedom, there are limits. These broad limits come down to us from Hammurabi’s Code and the Ten Commandments to today’s United States Constitution. There are boundaries in every human culture that are taboo; transgression results in exile or execution.
Sexualizing the prepubescent children of the poor and using them as vessels for fulfilling perverse desires is what my distant Italian ancestors would call an “infamnia” — a fundamental obscenity in violation of the laws of God and man.
Yet, evidence indicates that this is precisely what happened regularly in Michael Jackson’s home, at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ parties, and at Jeffrey Epstein’s island. The latter two did not practice their libertine hedonism in private. Countless members of the globe’s financial, political, and cultural elite accepted invitations to partake of these forbidden pleasures. That they were recorded doing so indicates that these parties were also intended to be blackmail traps.
Elon Musk was once asked why he was at variance with so many of his fellow ultra-plutocrats. He answered that he was not perverted enough. Donald Trump may have trafficked with adult women of various reputations, but he never joined in these sad parodies of pagan Roman orgies. Given the degree to which laws and precedents have been shattered in endless attempts at
“lawfare” against him, had Trump done so he would have certainly been destroyed long ago.
More than anything else, this is why so many global elites are desperate to stop President Trump at all costs. He and Elon Musk both rejected their siren song of perversions and avoided their blackmail trap. Instead of disgracing and incriminating themselves by engaging in pederasty, Trump and Musk threaten to publish the lists of the celebrity deviants who partook of this most forbidden fruit.
Character is, indeed, what a person does when they are in the dark, shrouded from judgment. The soul-cannibals in human masks who victimized vulnerable children to indulge their worst instincts revealed their true nature. If Trump gets the opportunity, their names will be brought before the public. What won’t these elites do to stop Trump from exposing them?
Let justice prevail. Trump-Vance 2024.
