I was guilty by association.

When I was in seventh grade at a school I shall protect, I was not one of the Cool Kids. I have never been one of the cool kids, just as I am not now one of the Cool Codgers. Instead, I was a nerd. It was at the school, blessed memory, that I found Lord of the Rings. The library shelf had a black book with a red eye stamped on it, I picked it up and my weekend was more lost than any Ray Milland ever had.

I was a nerd, but being a nerd can be hard and so for one week, I shook my nerd status. The cool kids beckoned and their ways became my ways. They said bad words and I said bad words. They talked dirty, I talked dirty. This was the 1970’s so there was not much dirt to talk, but there it was. And sometimes the cool kids would make fun of the “retards” in school.

There were few things in my family more sacred than telling the truth, but being kind to those with different abilities was one of them. It made me sick, I can still feel it, but I stood there and in that moment I was guilty by association.

People mocked the weak and I did nothing.

In fact, mostly I curried their favor. Weird to recall, but at one of the Cool Kids said: “Isn’t this more fun than being good?” And I, God help me, lied, I said: “I cannot believe all the fun I have been missing.”

There was no fun, just stupid words, and wandering around in the woods behind the school. Thank God there was little enough vice to leave lasting damage, but I was with the guys who liked to mock the “retards.”

I did not ever say it, but I was guilty by association.

Sometimes you hear that nobody should be “guilty by association.” Nonsense. Bad company? It corrupts good morals. 

I have never thought myself better than the “handicapped.” One of the few fights I have ever had was over this issue, but I was guilty, guilty, guilty by association. I chose wicked companions, because I was wicked and went along.

The fallacy, and there is a real one, is to blame good people for accidental associations with evil. We all have relatives we love (as relatives) who have bad views. Imagine a man who has a brother who thinks Star Trek: The Next Generation is better than Star Trek. He is not guilty of this sin against taste, because his association with his brother is as his brother and not as a horrible picker of television programming. 

Now imagine a man with a major media platform. Suppose this man picks a vice ridden person to promote his vice on his media platform. The man himself is as innocent of this vice as I was in seventh grade of despising the differently abled.

Yet that man is guilty by association because he has chosen to associate with a bad man for his badness.

It is not accidental this association, but intentional.

In some eras, people excuse private immorality with public rectitude. This man may be a cad to his wife, but he is a fine mayor. In other times, we excuse public sins by private virtues. This man is no racist, because some of his best friends are black. His association with racists, his promotion of their work? “Ignore it! No guilt by association!”

He is guilty because he has chosen the association and knows the evil.

As I was guilty in seventh grade . . . and so I learned this: bad company corrupts good morals. I also learned the desire to be a Cool Kid was unworthy and could lead me to lust for power. It was a good lesson, if impractical in modern politics. Those seventh grade Cool Kids have gone on to be fine people. They were not so bad, but I was. My desire to be a Cool Kid was worse than anything they were doing in the end. They were bad, but real. I was guilty by association and so was becoming false to be my true self.

And so it goes.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.