Higher Standard

I was thinking about the whole president and "Shithole" comment.  It seems like old new with everything else going on, but that seems to have stuck with me.  It's been difficult for me to be angry and offended by that.  Just last week I referred to a town I worked around as a "Shithole".  And that's inside the U.S.  What's funny is that I've traveled and worked quite a bit outside of the U.S. and I don't really recall every saying one of the places I stayed was a shithole.  Even though they were way worse than anywhere I've been in the U.S.  But I digress. 

Anyway, my train of thought has been coming around to "Why would I hold someone to a higher standard than I hold myself...."  Like I said, just last week I used the same exact language.  So it seems pretty hipocritical of me to say I'm really offended by the presidents remarks.

In comes my wife with the knowledge beatdown. 

So we are sitting at dinner talking about it, and I'm explaining what I'm thinking on the whole deal.  She looks at me and says simply "He doesn't represent you......He represents all of us."  Boom.

I couldn't argue with her logic.  The president represents all of us.  Whether you voted for him or not, whether you like him or despise him, it doesn't matter.  He is the president of our(emphasis on the OUR) country and he is what the rest of the world sees and hears.  

So, I should hold him to a higher standard.  I should expect him to represent myself, and everyone else, with every ounce of dignity and respect we have as a society.  We are all different, and we all value different things.  But I think we can agree on the fact that we're not assholes, not all of the time anyway.  And saying a country is a shithole isn't a very dignified way of describing a place that is home to somebody.  Especially when it's someplace he has never been.

So where does that leave me?  Do I just roll on through life being a hipocrite?  I hope not.  I hope I'm old enough, and humble enough, to realize that what I've been doing doesn't represent me as a person very well. If I expect that kind of behavior from people who do represent me then I guess I should expect if from myself.