I give you--Rick Santorum Being Judgmental

Celebrities are the aristocracy of America....and they have a huge impact.

Gosh darn it all, I wish celebrities would stop glamorizing drugs by living tempestuous, difficult lives, often losing much of their money, their health, their reputations, squandering their talent and dying far too young because of their addictions--it sets a bad example.

I don't know how many people ever looked on the life and times of Whitney Houston and thought--"That's it--I think I'll self-medicate and then I can be successful, beautiful and talented like her." I'm pretty sure more of us were thinking "Oh, I really wish she would beat that shit; it is wrecking her. She is better than this."

Celebrities are human beings who live ridiculously public lives and bear a lot of stress because of it. No one wants to be a public addict. No one wants to be a spectacle or an object of pity. People keep their use on the down-low--they don't frequently flaunt or glorify it. And because of the stigma attached, the disease of addiction doesn't get the attention or treatment it requires. It gets gossip. It gets a frankly tabloid treatment. But I hesitate to think anyone would say our celebrity users are examples. It's far nearer to the truth to say they are victims of a disease that is exacerbated by their privilege.

Piers Morgan's question addressed a strategem that might address preventing a celebrity from meeting a terrible fate due to the privileges of their celebrity that enables them more access to the poison that could kill them. Rick Santorum could not conceive of backing a remedy--oh no! People who make mistakes should pay for them--and bear responsibility for others. Whitney Houston isn't just a symbol of how drug use may have ruined her life--she must serve as a public example for all. Her life, her death--her everything, is public property to Santorum. She failed to serve the good by setting the right example.

I don't like throwing all that on a person who you barely know, only know of. It certainly wasn't her choice to leave this earth like this--I doubt that her troubles with drugs were something she wanted. I see his brief comments as a reflection on the judgmentalism with which he seems to approach everything.