Is Moral Tinder Cause to Fret?

The ethics of censorship,
Should it be partisan,
Made a political spectacle?

A spectator’s mockery,
(Addison and Steele be grieved!).
A bourgeois public spectacle.

A constitutional mess —
Let none of us digress:
Public officials as elected servants,

Electing to displease…
For sake of argument,
Their agenda split on party lines,

Can we name this ethical?
And so we find these savvy tattlers,
Debating idly in weak defense,

Tattling with prejudicial chattering,
Behaving  like old country squires,
Beguiling  us as civilized beings,

Their tongue waxing religiously,
In pursuit of public popularity,
(Milton would call this Paradise Lost),

The  pleasure of a vile imagination,
Condescending  to the fairer sex.
This today is our anthology,

Scripted for public consumption.
Ethics made a spectacle
(Addison and Steele, beware!),

By a House divided by barbed debate,
With  “rules for thee, but not for me.”
Is not this ethics all gone wrong?

Let us observe without reserve:
A life made mockery by some threat,
Is moral tinder, cause to fret!