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At least if you're a Presidential candidate. When I read his remarks I felt like I was in Sunday School again. He thinks it was a huge mistake for Obama to be honest about his youthful drug experimentation. Here are his comments:

“It’s just not a good idea for people running for President of the United States who potentially could be the role model for a lot of people to talk about their personal failings while they were kids because it opens the doorway to other kids thinking, ‘well I can do that too and become President of the United States,’” Romney told an Iowa audience today. “I think that was a huge error by Barack Obama…it is just the wrong way for people who want to be the leader of the free world.”

I agree with the person who commented that the fact is you CAN have personal failings as a kid AND still become president. Is Romney saying we should use scare tactics and tell kids if you do drugs you'll never be President? Why is it so dangerous to be honest about your past mistakes, even to kids?

SatanWasSetUp wrote:At least if you're a Presidential candidate. When I read his remarks I felt like I was in Sunday School again. He thinks it was a huge mistake for Obama to be honest about his youthful drug experimentation. Here are his comments:

“It’s just not a good idea for people running for President of the United States who potentially could be the role model for a lot of people to talk about their personal failings while they were kids because it opens the doorway to other kids thinking, ‘well I can do that too and become President of the United States,’” Romney told an Iowa audience today. “I think that was a huge error by Barack Obama…it is just the wrong way for people who want to be the leader of the free world.”

I agree with the person who commented that the fact is you CAN have personal failings as a kid AND still become president. Is Romney saying we should use scare tactics and tell kids if you do drugs you'll never be President? Why is it so dangerous to be honest about your past mistakes, even to kids?

Let's see... Romney was once a bishop and a stake president, right? So lying and covering up potentially embarrassing history is the normal way of doing things. I see nothing that leads me to believe he wouldn't lie to the American people about virtually anything that might harm him politically.

SatanWasSetUp wrote:At least if you're a Presidential candidate. When I read his remarks I felt like I was in Sunday School again. He thinks it was a huge mistake for Obama to be honest about his youthful drug experimentation. Here are his comments:

“It’s just not a good idea for people running for President of the United States who potentially could be the role model for a lot of people to talk about their personal failings while they were kids because it opens the doorway to other kids thinking, ‘well I can do that too and become President of the United States,’” Romney told an Iowa audience today. “I think that was a huge error by Barack Obama…it is just the wrong way for people who want to be the leader of the free world.”

I agree with the person who commented that the fact is you CAN have personal failings as a kid AND still become president. Is Romney saying we should use scare tactics and tell kids if you do drugs you'll never be President? Why is it so dangerous to be honest about your past mistakes, even to kids?

He did not say that. He said you don't need to parade your personal failings and give kids an excuse to think drugs are ok.

Honesty is important but there are some things you don't need to share.

Jason Bourne wrote:He did not say that. He said you don't need to parade your personal failings and give kids an excuse to think drugs are ok.

Kids aren't that dumb, Jason. Even the kids that use drugs know exactly what they're doing and what the consequences are.

harmony wrote:

Jason Bourne wrote:He did not say that. He said you don't need to parade your personal failings and give kids an excuse to think drugs are ok.

Kids aren't that dumb, Jason. Even the kids that use drugs know exactly what they're doing and what the consequences are.

Cognitively they know, but that doesn't necessarily change behavior. I knew I should have got up this morning to work out and I know the positive benefits but I didn't do it. Teenagers and kids are even less able to conceive of the long-term.

The Nehor wrote:

harmony wrote:

Jason Bourne wrote:He did not say that. He said you don't need to parade your personal failings and give kids an excuse to think drugs are ok.

Kids aren't that dumb, Jason. Even the kids that use drugs know exactly what they're doing and what the consequences are.

Cognitively they know, but that doesn't necessarily change behavior. I knew I should have got up this morning to work out and I know the positive benefits but I didn't do it. Teenagers and kids are even less able to conceive of the long-term.

That they know doesn't mitigate the consequences, no, but it takes away the excuse that they think drugs are okay. They know drugs aren't okay. They know alcohol isn't okay. They know, and they choose to ignore that knowledge, but that doesn't take away the knowledge.

Jason Bourne wrote:He did not say that. He said you don't need to parade your personal failings and give kids an excuse to think drugs are ok.

Is that what Obama did? I think Obama is saying he made mistakes in his past, we all make mistakes. Romney seems to be saying if you want to run for President, you can't make any mistakes, or at least that's the message a Presidential candidate should be sending to kids. I agree, you don't need to tell kids everything, but Romney is also sending the wrong message that Presidential candidates must appear perfect, which seems to fit his personality, and fits with the Mormon doctrine of avoiding even the appearance of evil.

SatanWasSetUp wrote:

Jason Bourne wrote:He did not say that. He said you don't need to parade your personal failings and give kids an excuse to think drugs are ok.

Is that what Obama did? I think Obama is saying he made mistakes in his past, we all make mistakes. Romney seems to be saying if you want to run for President, you can't make any mistakes, or at least that's the message a Presidential candidate should be sending to kids. I agree, you don't need to tell kids everything, but Romney is also sending the wrong message that Presidential candidates must appear perfect, which seems to fit his personality, and fits with the Mormon doctrine of avoiding even the appearance of evil.

Well, actually the Church policy is to forgive others and yourself and remember those sins no more. What purpose does it serve to tell others how I've screwed up in the past?

To some kids, perhaps the internal shame and stigma of knowing they smoked a joint once or twice with a friend is a lot like the "licked cupcake" phenomenon. They're told over and over again by adults that using drugs makes you a failure. Now they've used drugs, and what do they have to look forward to now? A lifetime of failure? What about the kids who don't want to fail? Can't they have any role models in society that show that it's possible to succeed even if you've ever smoked a joint?

Maybe the effect of someone like Obama confessing to teenage drug experience can do more good by showing kids that having done pot a couple times is not the end of the world, more than it will harm kids by giving them a way to justify their own use.

I agree, you don't need to tell kids everything, but Romney is also sending the wrong message that Presidential candidates must appear perfect, which seems to fit his personality, and fits with the Mormon doctrine of avoiding even the appearance of evil.

Agreed. And with statistics showing that a majority of kids have smoked a joint before, what are we doing raising a generation of kids, the majority of whom are fed the message from adults that they're now damaged goods, who can't aspire to anything truly great in this country because they made this mistake as a youth?