By Eamon Scarbrough
Writing is not for the faint of heart, and it’s definitely not for the lazy. One sad fact of life—in my experience as a writer and journalist—is that there are high standards that have to be met when one is required to, in a sense, survive.
With this burden comes a constant temptation to make our work go a little faster. I can say with some certainty that everyone has faced the allure of copying and pasting someone else’s work and claiming it as their own. It’s certainly been done before, and certain individuals get away with it, be it by cunning on their part or leniency on the part of their teacher, editor, or overseer.
Recently, one person didn’t quite get away with it, and he holds a much higher position of power than a student or a journalist: He’s a U.S. senator.
Sen. Rand Paul has been under heavy fire in the last few weeks for some morally questionable content in a speech he made. The language used was not morally questionable in any direct way, but the source was. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow revealed on her show that part of Paul’s speech that referenced the 1997 science-fiction film Gattaca came from the movie’s Wikipedia entry. Now, I don’t know which is more shocking: that Paul plagiarized, or that he had the nerve to reference such a gladly forgotten gem as Gattaca.
After that transgression surfaced, more dirt started getting kicked up, and it came in piles. Buzzfeed found that another speech committed the aforementioned sin—this time aping some text verbatim from the film Stand and Deliver.
Paul’s actions and movie tastes both reflect that of a college freshman. His reaction to the accusations didn’t help him much either. On America with Jorge Ramos, he said that he had “borrowed the plot lines” from Gattaca.
If there is supposed to be a higher standard of professionalism in our government, our schools, and our basic society, it needs to start to show. While politics have never been a completely spotless area in American history, they are starting to get very frightening and very ridiculous, very fast.
Paul was referencing Gattaca to spotlight eugenics, or genetic improvement of humans. Many fear that eugenics will dehumanize us as a race. Unfortunately, his speechwriters weren’t prepared for such a lofty topic.
Paul, or any politician, should be welcome to dole out criticism on a subject, but they probably should make sure they are doing so in their own words.
We’ve been taught in our English 102 classes about Wikipedia not being a credible source. It’s quite telling to see a potential presidential candidate go against that standard.