Willravel

Everyone loves porn, they just don't admit it. Baby killing? I'd say that evens out with sending soldiers to theri deaths for oil. Gay loving? Some of my friends are gay, and I don't beat them with the old testamate. Is that so amoral? Of course not. Some people are too stupid to realize that everyone has different morals.

smooth

interesting commentary, but it doesn't take into account that such sentiment doesn't come from stupidty, it flows from the heartfelt belief that one's religion is the fountainhead of morality. That such morality is objective, it's handed down from on high, outside the realm of humanity, given atop a mountain and carved in stone, it is after all is said and done the correct morality. To such a person, if another possesses a different moral code then such person's "morals" are absent. they are defunct, perverted, evil.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Willravel

BUT, liberal beliefs do not contrast with he ten commandments. The gay thing is still being decided about in many church bodies. Abortion might not be murder. And, again, everyone loves porn. That's something that bridges all political groups.

In all seriousness, it is important for those who have strong Christian beliefs to understand that christianity is only one interpretation of the bible. The idea of condeming poeople because of a different interpretation of the same morals is totally and completly absurd (thus the stupid comment). Islamic and Jewish morals have almost the exact same root as Christian morals, for example.

roachboy

for someone who claims to be committed to precision, you are certainly fast and loose with things, lindsey: the nazis were not in themselves a "culture"--though they certainly had an internal culture (whatever that term means, really--it is a problem, but anyway) well before they came to power. they were certainly, obviously able to turn aspects of german culture--particularly nationalism, particularly a highly exclusionary conception of nationalism--to their advantage--as was any other fascist regime---and on that basis to remain in power after a questionable (to say the least) ascension to power in 1933. they did this in all kinds of other ways--but it is stupid to claim that they were simply a political party--they were a cultural movement that exploited nationalist signifiers, the economic and social insecurities of the lower middle classes--and gave these features a particular direction---the purification of the body politic, a national mission through military means, a destiny to spread their version of freedom throughout the world---their purification campaign involved a fetishism of military values, a total intolerance of dissent, political and otherwise, rooted in a conflation of their particular nationalism with an absolute moral code (remember that in every single fascist regime, it was the political left that was persecuted first, before any other segment of society---and that the supporters of this persecution justified it on moral grounds.)

remember also that after world war 2, the americans were really really uneasay about the fact that fascism had discredited nationalism--and that the americans were every bit as anti-left as they frascists had been--so in local elections in germany from 1945-1947, the americans preferred old fascists getting into power than communist party members, for example: and the american "understanding" of fascism tries to reduce it to a response to economic crisis--without this you would have had none of the institutional apparatus put into place that defined the post-war world--not bretton woods, not the oecd, no the world bank, not the imf--not nato and other regional military alliances--none of it. the other wing of the american "understanding" of fascism has been staged through endelss world war 2 movies, in whcih germans are mostly men with funny accents, a strange way of smoking and an unseemly affection for leather outfits whose primary function is to die in great anonymous numbers at the hands of the grizzled gi superhero.
almost never do you find any reference to the content of fascist ideology.

all this is about making the world safe for nationalism in the face of its catastrophic outcomes in two world wars. to salvage nationalism after that level of carnage took some real work. denial and revision at every level. it is pretty amazing.

if you actually look at fascism--which you obviously have not---the parallels to the contemporary political landscape in america are pretty alarming--this debate over the ridiculous claim floating about in the right ideological apparatus these days about "absolute morality"--which of course is never defined, perhaps because in conservativeland this fiction functions as common sense (if this is true, then woe be us all) or because even they know the notion of absolute morality is absurd, without content, idiotic, indefensable--that the term seems to have originated amongst fundamentalist protestants in the context of some bizarre-o "spiritual war" that you can hear talked up in sermon after sermon, week after week--all a function of their hallucinations about the end times, when they will happen and what they mean (the idea is to at least become part of the 144K)--this from a variant of protestantism that has no use for theology, no use for philosophy, that believes in a literal interpretation of the bible and so cannot be relied upon to even know what they are saying when they claim that there is an absolute morality---makes the claim all the more appalling.

that you would try to define its inverse first (amoral) is an index of how easy it is to fall into traps laid by words, by politically charged words, the ones that shape debate and the possibilities within them by boxing you in to stupid arguments and meaningless distinctions. the big concessions to an authoritarian regime are preapred by lots and lots of little ones--giving way terms of debate, twisting yourself to fit the tiny boxes provided you--do this long enough and you probably will not even know the big ones have happened--then, later, you will act surprised. these little concessions at the level of discourse are fundamental to teaching a culture of political servility that wraps itsefl up as a culture of individual rights. the irony, of course, is that atomized individuals have and can have no power.

what right ideology is about is a great act of collective political self-immolation dressed up as a defense of the autonomy of the individual.

such is a the nature of the right ideological apparatus. talk alot about democracy while actively working to gut every vestige of it at every level that is not pure form


but no matter i suppose---hell the germans of 1935 did not know how the story of the regime was going to play out--the americans of 2004 know, but they are convinced in the main that the story involving fascism obtains only for other people--so they can allow themselves to blithely slide into something not unlike fascism--defending themselves by working to discredit people who mention the word--which is obviously a sane response.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

lindseylatch

I wasn't even arguing about facism, I was replying to a comment about my post. I suppose I should have used quotes...
In no way did I say anything about America being or not being facist. I didn't actually say ANYTHING about facism. I said the Nazi's weren't a culture. That was the ONLY point I was trying to make with that post.
In the original post, I was merely saying that laws are based on morals, and that there are few universals across cultures (except for the examples of looking down on incest and genocide). Saying that genocide was practiced by a "culture" does, in fact, only further prove my point, and does not detract from it.

__________________
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
-Voltaire

MoonDog

Hmmm, I'm a Republican, and I'm conservative on many issues. However, I support the right of a woman to choose an abortion, I support the right of Terry Schiavo to die...Hell - I might even be convinced that universal healthcare is a good thing. I'm open to convincing arguments. Don't tell anybody, but Hillary Clinton - despite being a person whom I consider to have sacrificed integrity for power, as well as a carpetbagger - is probably doing a damn good job as the junior Senator from New York.

I base my positions on my own moral compass, which is different from Hosts, and is different from KMA's, etc. etc. etc. As a result, I find myself cringing each time another "conservative mouthpiece" states that the GOP and the Religious Right have some sort of lock on morality...its absurd!

But yet, it seems that every time I read a post like Hosts, with the thinly-veiled venom and hatred of many (if not all) things right-wing and conservative ("thug" being a word of choice I often run across), the unspoken point is that the other side - in this case the liberal side - is in actuality the side in possession of the "superior" moral position.

If that is indeed a subpoint of all these threads, then I reject it, just as I reject the message from my very own GOP that Republicans hold the moral high ground. Sweeping generalizations about parties and party members are fine and dandy most of the time, but it bears mentioning that the party is also there to function as a gathering point for people who share SIMILAR opinions and values - not IDENTICAL opinions and values.

host

MoonDog, you don't know me, but I understand that all of us here, are "what we write". We probably won't meet face to face, but IMO, it makes sense to
share with you some personal details to add to the impression that I've made via the content of and the tone in my posts.

I grew up in a conservative family, (my father served in the USMC), in a small. New England, conservative blue collar town.
In the late '60's, my high school english teacher insisted that his students subscribe to the NY Times and receive and read the weekday editions during the school year. I read the front page and ed and op-ed pages every day.
I learned what was heppening in Vietnam and in the Nixon administration. When the time came to register for the draft, I decided that it was not right for me to cooperate with the selective service system. My informed opinion about the Nixon admin. then, influenced me to see it as deceitful and criminal in it's prosecution of the war, it's transparency and accountibility, and in it's covert monitoring of, and operations against dissenters.

Today, I see the Bush administration acting in a similar, but much broader, criminal and secretive manner than during Nixon's tenure. I view anyone who
voted for Bush last november as an enabler and a supporter of a war criminal who has treasonously subverted numerous provisions of the U.S. Constitution and initiated and prosectuted illegal war of aggression in Iraq after intentionally misleading congress, the American people, and the UN security council, by knowingly and grossly exaggerating the threat level of Saddam's
Iraq, and by presiding over a systemic campaign of intentionally fabricated statements, speeches, and PR concerning non-existant Iraqi WMD's and WMD making capabilities, as justifiication to launch and prosecute the war.
The war was preceded by the Bush admin.'s questionable conduct on 9/11 and it's failure to account for it's performance in the areas of domestic air defense on 9/11 or of it's reaction to pre 9/11 intelligence info, or it's intentional stonewalling of a timely post 9/11 "what went wrong" investigation. This week, the long awaited report on the results of investigation of the pre-IRAQ intelligence assessment failings will be released.
On orders from the Bush admin., the report will avoid assessing how the influence or interference of VP Cheney or other Bush admin. officials, contributed to the unreliable and false determinations of WMD's and of Iraq's actual abiltiy to threaten it's neighbors or the U.S.
I offer some anecdotes as to why I believe that I am openminded and tolerant to different and opposing views and opinions.:

In the last ten years:
1.) I had a close and mutually respectful relationship with a now former father-in-law who for ten years was a member of Hitler youth in Nazi Germany training near the end of WWII to be a Luftwaffe pilot. He was of the opinion that the holocaust did not happen or was exaggerated. We could disagree and still maintain peaceful but animated exchanges of opinion.

2.) I was romantically involved for two years with the chief of staff of a moderate Republican member of congress. We calmly discussed all political issues and accepted our numerous differences of opinion.

3.) I lived in Manhattan for 4 years, until shortly after 9/11 2001, and I supported many of Mayor Giuliani's law and order policies because I personally benefitted from the huge police presence and dramatically reduced crime rate.

4.) I moved to a southern, bible belt state, 3 years ago, to renew a relationship with my long lost first love. In the long interim since our last contact, she became a born again Christian, attends a small Southern Baptist church ( I now accompany her there for Sunday services), and displayed a "Bush-Cheney 2000" bumper sticker on the back of her car. We've been married for 2 years and I enjoy the mild winters here too much to move back to New York. My wife has been persuaded to withdraw her former support for Bush. She abstained from voting for any presidential candidate last november.
She believes in a literal interpretation of the bible, and is inclined to believe that the earth is no more than 10,000 years old. She sits through my tirades when I yell at the talking heads on TV, and my long, but informative monologs about the content of the posts I make on these threads. Her son joined the army and is a Bush and Rumsfeld supporter. We calmy trade our opposing points of view long into the night when he comes home on leave.

MoonDog, I hope that you've read this and now have a more developed sense of who I am. I thank you for posting on this thread. Can you please share your reaction to my opinion that everyone who enables the Bush admin. to
remain in office by voting for it's political leaders, is culpable, if not complicit,
in it's alledged crimes. My informed opinion is that the Bush presidency is the most criminal and treasonous in modern times. I have no choice but to call on all Bush admin. supporters to re-examine the justification for that support and to demand transparency and accountability of Bush and Cheney, instead of whitewashed, window dressing. like the above mentioned "intelligence report".

I am a reasonable man, living under the rule of unreasonable, unethical, anti-constitutional, and law breaking elected officials in the federal executive and legislative branches. I've decided that I have to tolerate opposing opinions of family members and friends in my community, but I also have to voice my informed opinion and frequently protest against the actions and policies of the Bush government.

Willravel

As I read this, I can't stop nodding my head. Very well put. It is honest and frank dialogue like this that might start the depolarization. The depolarization is the first step in removing the apathy and complacency, and starting on the road to justice and eventual recovery.

For anyone who read host's post and got really angry and had words like 'traitor' or 'unpatriotic' come to mind, it is time for you to decide if you are for or against the constitution and the entire basis of the nation that grants you freedom, liberty, and God given rights you enjoy every moment of every day.

MSD

You do realize that by referencing Godwin's law in an attempt to attack another poster, you, as well as that poster, have lost the argument based on that same concept, don' t you?

MSD

The fallacy in this argument is that it fails to split liberalism and conservatism into social, economic, and global categories (although isolationist/globalist is a more accurate description.) You seem to be criticizing social liberals and conservatives, while liberal economic policies are the type that you are advocating against conservative (classic liberal) ideology. Global issues deal with foreign policy, and intrenational trade, so this scale can be split and the halves atached to economic and social scales.

There's also the fact that you have to address classic liberalism versus neo-liberalism, traditional conservatism versus neo-conservatism, and a whole host of terms that have been used to identify small groups and distinguish them from the crowd.

raveneye

I took a quick look through the LEXIS/NEXIS American public poll database on polls over the last 10 years or so that contained the term "family values."

Some interesting patterns:

--on the question of whether Dems or Reps have the best ideas for handling issues of family values, now most respondents favor the GOP. However, this was not always the case. Ten years there was no difference in people's perceptions of the two partied in this regard. So it appears that this centering of "moral values" in the Republican party (in the mind of the average American) has occurred just over the last 10 years.

--the tendency to believe that certain behaviors related to sexual activity are immoral is far more strongly related to educational level than to political party or position on the continuum from left to right. For example, on the question of whether it is right for a man and woman to have sexual relations before marriage, 62% of people with less than a HS education said yes (wrong), as opposed to 29% of people with postgraduate education. In contrast 50% of Republicans said yes and 37% of Dems.

I've quoted below some representative polls with demographics.

KMA-628

Easy there fella.

It wasn't an attack on anybody, regardless of what you assume or deem to be true.

It was an attempt to point out that this thread went to Hitler extremely fast--when Hitler, his regime, his crimes, etc had nothing to do with the topic at hand.

I find it interesting how both sides use Hitler as a comparison when it is beneficial to them.

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

KMA-628

I am just guessing, but I wonder if the change that seems to have occurred 10 yrs ago had anything to do with Clinton and his scandal.

The timing is right, at least--maybe it was a bigger deal to most Americans than Liberals want to believe.

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

raveneye

Could be. I find it also interesting that, in the survey where Clinton and Dole is compared, there's a huge difference among respondents based on educational level.

The numbers are pretty amazing: no HS diploma, 50% say Clinton is better for family values; HS 40%; college 36%; and postgraduate 28%.

The more education a person had, the more negative they were about Clinton's morals, but in the population as a whole, Clinton and Dole were seen as evenly matched. That was on May 31, 1996, years before the Lewinsky scandal broke.

KMA-628

Once again, just a guess, but I wonder if that shows that the more educated you are, the higher the standard you hold for someone like the President.

Maybe, for the less educated, they want a President who is more "normal" and for the higher-educated, they want someone up to their "level" or greater? I use quotes around "level" because the "higher-educated" are not above these kinds of activities but they put greater weight on keeping the activities "hush-hush", well-hidden and behind closed doors.

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

smooth

actually, I would propose that more educated people would recognize and disparage hypocrasy.

not that one's morals aren't up to snuff, but that they would claim to have them and or that they don't really matter in the context of governance and shouldn't be used as a party plank.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

MoonDog

I just wanted to acknowledge Host's response. I've been a bit busy to respond, and really lack the time today to do so properly. So I expect this reply to be somewhat incoherent and rambling, and for that I apologuize. But, since he invested some personal energy into it, I felt it right and proper to do the same.

I was raised in a conservative household as well. The big difference is that I was born in 1968, denying me the opportunity to experience the political maelstrom that you did. The closest thing to the Nixon scandal that I have experienced would have to be either Iran/Contra or the Clinton-Lewinsky ordeal.

As for this, I have to ask what you would have wanted me to do? Vote for someone like Kerry, who - as far as I could tell - did not have a single coherent plan for the issues facing the United States? Honestly, remove George Bush from the campaign and he still doesn't impress me.

I post in several different forum sites, so I may not have shared this here. I supported the war, but from my point of view, it should have happened YEARS ago, while Clinton was still in office. I was worried about a person who had oil money at his personal disposal - a person with a grudge against the US and its allies for thwarting his plans to retake Kuwait for Iraq. A person who did not seem to be entirely rational and stable. A person who was willing to use chemical weapons - and God knows what else - to achieve his goals. A person who was reported to have significant stockpiles of said weapons. A person who might find it acceptable for other persons or groups to "acquire" one or more of those weapons from him. A person who had sponsored an attempt on the life of former President Bush (albeit a laughable attempt). A person who was in clear violation of the UN resolutions that negotiated the very same cessation of hostilities that saved his hide and kept him in power.

When the current President came along and said Hussein was bad and needed to go, he had me at "Hello". All of his "intelligence" that came out supporting him was - to me - icing on the cake.

Now we find out that the intelligence was wrong - horribly, horribly wrong. Damn, that is unacceptable. And truthfully, if you and the rest of the people in the US and the world want someone to take a fall for it, then I would whole-heartedly agree that a Ken Starr-like probe be put together. When the results come out, take whoever you want to trial and throw those you convict in the slammer.

If the current Administration had had any sense, they probably would have sacrificed Rumsfeld and Cheney, as well as some others, as soon as it became apparent that there were no WMD's. They take the fall, Bush offers up the cheap presidential pardon, yada yada yada. Instead, they stuck to their guns and still have a real shitstorm on their hands.

Now we have a "bi-partisan" report on the intelligence failings that spurred the Bush Administration into the Iraq War. It says valuable, if unsurprising, things about the state of our intelligence community and what they did wrong. And yes, while it doesn't investigate the concept of political pressure being brought from the White House or other agencies, it certainly acknowledges the possibility. It even provides a method to report on actual cases anonymously. I put the "bi-partisan" in quotes because - as you yourself state - people are not happy with the way the members of that committee were selected, nor were they happy with the scope under which they operated. I'm sorry about that, but this cuirrent report is the best we have out there. I have to live by it until something else concrete comes along.

I should also point out another thing that baffles me. Over and over again, I am bombarded with the message of how incredibly stupid the current president is. Out and out dumb, I'm told. And yet, this is the same guy that the SAME PEOPLE will tell me - over and over again - has orchestrated perhaps the biggest Presidential crime in history! Which is it?

But I digress. I happen to support other Bush policies, such as the ending of appeasement policy towards North Korea, personal accounts in Social Security, No Child Left Behind, etc. The other presidential candidates did not offer me a single message of interest to even make me say, "Hmmm, that sounds interesting." Why then, should I give them my vote? Because you say that Bush is bad? Because a whole BUNCH of you do? No thanks, I don't vote based on what others tell me to do. I guess that makes me an enabler, fully complicit in the policies of the Bush White House, even though I mentioned in my previous post that I do not support all of the policies of my presidential choice.

So, if I am complict in all that is good and bad in the Bush White House, what does that make you? I assume that you wholeheartedly voted for the returning of President Clinton for his second term? If so, aren't you an enabler of adulterous behavior in the White House? Aren't you then fully complict in perjury? How much responsibility will YOU then claim in the bombing of that plant in Sudan where Osama bin Laden was supposedly getting chemical weapons? (http://partners.nytimes.com/library/...9us-sudan.html). These things may lack the gravity of what you accuse Bush and his administration of, but they still lurk in President Clinton's closet.

So, there you have it, my admission to you that I am, indeed, an enabler of Bush policy. Since I voted for the man, I apparently have to take full responsibility for his each and every action, whether I approve of it or not. What will you do with this admission of mine, now that you have it?


****************************
****************************
I want to put a final note here: I spent longer than I should have on this post, which means that my wife will be well and truly PO'd when she finds out that I didn't do the chores I promised I would! Oh well. However, I have read and re-read this post of mine, and I find that it doesn't even come close to expressing how I feel...I suspect that a 3-hour long conversation wouldn't suffice! I leave this post here, however, because Host deserved a response.

irateplatypus

law and morality are inseparable.

if to believe any law to be "right" then you are not amoral. however, if you believe any law to be "right" then you are legislating morality.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

KMA-628

I just wanted to add to this.

Having served under Clinton, one thing seems to be often forgotten.

I was deployed on several occasions for "action" that was pre-emptive and could/would have resulted in civilian deaths. Not every deployment resulted in "action" (i.e. invasion of Haiti), but some did (i.e. Somalia and Bosnia).

All without any UN support....and all were "pre-emptive".

Hell, what pissed me off more than anything were the times we were attacked and we didn't do anything (i.e. Yemen and Saudi Arabian embassy).

A lot of the criticism directed at Bush and considered "criminal" by some, can be directed at almost every president we have had....yet I don't hear much screaming about that....just this time.....very selective, in my opinion.

__________________
Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.