I Am a Liberal, But I Am Amoral ??? Compared to What?
 

One of our own members here at TFP Politics, posted his opinion that liberals are "amoral". I believe that one thing that liberals have in common, is an inability to consistantly view issues as either black or white; right or wrong. When I delve into the details of issues such as "a woman's right to choose", or the permissibility of same sex marriage, I develop strong opinions for the argument that these are issues to be left to the decision of the people involved, preferrably in private. I am of the same mind when it comes to family members determining when to start or stop artificial methods of life support.

I want accountable, transparent, secular government. I do not subscribe to a mindset, that on many issues, stresses an overriding need to stop abuse of laws or benefits, to the point of entirely eliminating or making it much more difficult to obtain the benefit or relief,

Two examples are the passage of the "bankrutpcy reform" bill that uses the excuse for the need to stop the probable 20 percent, at most, who might be
abusing the chapter 7 debt relief provision in the current law, to pass a "reform" that makes it extremely difficult for the 80 percent of legitimate filers
to qualify for debt relief, many of whom are financially insolvent due to illness.

And.....the opinion that all welfare recipients should submit to mandatory drug and substance abuse testing because a small, stereotypical minority are perceived to buy drugs or alcohol with the proceeds of their benefits.
Too often, I see opinions that are simplistic solutions to complex problems. The solutions are commonly more control, more requirements, less privacy, and proposals that put a greater burden on the least of us, usually in return for less protections and benefits than the abiding majority already enjoy.

I would be more inclined to see the point of an emphasis on stopping the abuse of bankruptcy filing and accepting welfare relief, if I saw a similar outcry and political effort aimed at the corporate criminals who bilk society of vastly greater sums of money, with so little consequence. Where are the proposals to test CEO's of public companies for substance abuse ? Why is the only meaningful results of criminal investigation and prosecution of corporate crime and stock fraud coming from the attorney general's office in one state?

In short, the reaction by those of the opposite view is a focus on targetting those sterotypical abusers of the status quo at the expense of the large majority who obey the rules and genuinely qualify. The Reagan era stereotype of the cadillac driving, "welfare queen" has been replaced by the drug addict on welfare, trading his food stamps for a bag of his drug of choice.

Now......I'm labelled as an "amoral liberal". I'll consider wearing it proudly, if
you'll answer the question, "amoral liberal".....as opposed to what ?

Opposed to this ?:
I wonder if Vance McDonald got as worked up about the 5 SCOTUS Judges
unsigned opinion in Gore v. Bush..........

Or this ???
Or these items from the RightMarch website homepage?
Or opposed to this ??
Is it that simple ??? Amoral liberals, bad. ACLU, bad. Boy Scouts' policy of excluding homosexually oriented scoutmasters, good. Or is what I so often perceive to be hypocrisy, class warfare and religious, racial, or sexual orientation/lifestyle intolerance, actually more sincere and constructive than it seems to be ?

Or am I an "amoral liberal", as opposed to this ???

I think you're an amoral liberal compared to that sack of shit who sat on the Greta whatever her name is show tonight and explained that:

he didn't go to jail while his, what looked to be a 5 year old boy, was arrested because he wanted to make sure he got out safely

so greta asked some questions while the proud father looked on, clutching his bible to his chest!

so, do you know what is going on?
kid: well, they aren't feeding her or giving her water. they are killing her

well, do you know how she got in that condition?
uh no, but I know it's wrong


yeah, a sack of shit, in my opinion. a whole thread spiraling down the tubes because somebody looked at young boys (what? 17, 13, 8? who knows--but he deserves death and/or flogging according to some) yet this child abuse is acceptable.

In my experience, liberals tend to take a more (and sometimes overly) nuanced view of complex issues, while conservatives take a more (and sometimes overly) black-and-white view of those issues. The effect of that is that liberals look to conservatives like wishy-washy wafflers with no backbone or moral fiber, and conservatives look to liberals like shallow, dogmatic talking-point-regurgitators who follow blindly and don't think.

I saw a poll that demonstrated (I'm paraphrasing) that liberals are interested in hearing all sides of an issue, and conservatives are interested in hearing the side of an issue that they already agree with. Hence the radical shift to the right in the media over the last few years.

You don't have children do you?

ncb:
what does this question mean?
what are you syaing by way of it?

Liberals do have morals. Just because their morals and the means by which they develop them is different from some conservatives, doesn't mean they completely lack them. As I said in my Philosophy class a couple of semesters ago, "Just because I'm an athiest, doesn't make me amoral."

I have no idea, but it's absolutely absurd in light of the entire post I wrote.
It's symptomatic of what we've discussed in prior threads: namely the logical inconsistency between various talking points of republicans and their inability or unwillingness to engage in self-reflexivity.

I'll deconstruct it:
What is implies to me is that there is no difference between looking at pictures of 17 year olds, 13 year olds, and 8 year olds--they are all morally reprobate.

How this meshes with various ways of engaging with one's sexual fantasies, specifically on this board a point you already raised roachboy, such as, viewing people who pretend or appear to be minors--most blatant examples would be japanese schoolgirl fantasies, "barely legal," teen posts, tease posts (which scrape the line since they don't show nudity--how this doesn't conflict with the prohibition that the thought constitutes the crime, I am unclear on), but all of those types of fantasies are somehow ok when we discuss the particular case of the scout employee.

Then we have the problematic assumption that 17 and 8 year olds do not contain varying levels of ability of consent to sexual activity--even within their own cohorts, let alone across them. And the other interesting premise that none of them look anything like their adult counterparts (also stated in that thread). Now, I've been warned of deletion of my account in response to my arguing that all humans, minors included, ought to be able to make their own, autonomous decisions regarding sexual activity rather than government, so I won't carry that argument out here.

But I will point out the inconsistency of holding this opinion (that 17 and 8 year olds alike are incapable of consent in regards to sexual activity--that all interactions with them are predatory on the face of it) but 5 year old boys can make autonomous political decisions (stated in the shiavo thread in defense of what this parent did--that noone really knows if this boy was conducting himself according to his own political/religious belief system).



The fact that I left the first set of assumptions unquestioned, actually, goes right past NCB.
That is, since I questioned how this type of abuse could be supported in light of the other thread, the implication would be that I was not disputing whether sexual predation is abuse.


Now, when I pull their statements out of the moral domain and evaluate their logical consistency with one another, that seems to be interpreted by conservatives that I can't make moral evaluations--when in fact that charge is more properly laid at their feet. The fact that I refuse to view all of the former as morally reprobate renders me amoral--regardless if it then creates logical inconsistency on my standpoints on other issues (as it does for them). What does that make someone who can't distinguish between any of this?

So, yeah, what is NCB trying to say?
I guess at it's simplest level it implies that a parent can hold the opinion that all minors, regardless of age, are victims when it comes to sexuality, but that all minors, regardless of age, are autonomous decision makers when it comes to politics/religion.

But only parents can understand that; since my post questions it, I must not be a parent.
(I'll still leave that question unanswered since it seems to me to be my own personal life and I refuse to admit it has any bearing on my understanding of the logical inconsistency I've tried to outline in the awkward form of communication we're constrained by here).



lol, you should have told them not to confuse your immorality with amorality! :)

crapola, I've done it...

This is funny because I just wrote a university paper about how many pieces of legislation are the government's attempt to legislate morality.

I came to the conclusion that there are different morals for different people, both sides have an equal stake at what is moral and right, different strokes for different folks. Everyone is allowed to have their belief.

The fact that the government is biased to one side is unacceptable though, not everyone in the country shares the common Christian fundamental mores.

the 'moral relativism' argument is specifically designed to paint things as having to choose between two clearly defined right and wrong answers. It's the diehard republican(note that i'm not saying average conservative here) strategy to insure that those who aren't on the extreme of either side feel they have to choose 'the right' or moral choice instead of allowing that moderate or centrist to stray to a middle party.

We all want to legislate morals, because that's what we think is RIGHT.
Like polygamy. It's illegal in this country, yet many people see no problem with it in other cutures. Why do we see it as something we need to make illegal? Because we see it as wrong.
I see few laws that aren't in some way related to a set of morals.
The only two things that have been found to be commonly looked down upon by ever cuture are incest (to varying degrees) and genocide. Everything else is morals.

There are some cultures that didn't have a problem with genocide either. One in particular was run by a very right-wing, moralistic, patriotic and clear-thinking individual who had little time for woolly-minded liberals, or Jews.

^^^^^^

Godwin'd in 13 posts......that's fast.

Hey I never actually said it!
(If it hadn't been me, someone else would have done it)

Yes, you're probably with Al Qaeda too.

interesting tactic, this--particularly in a context where the implications of claims to absolute morality lead you straight to fascism when you map them onto politics. using this move, you can trivialize the problem. it's easier that way for you, isnt it? better that than think about the question of how these positions might bleed into each other, yes?

I dont know why this definition is made so often.

To me liberals vs conservative is not a meaningful distinction. Both liberals and conservatoves are capitalists - and thus they are placed on one side of the great political divide. On the other side is ths radical working class, the communists.

conservatives seek to preserve the current order, liberals seek only to reform the current order. The reformers is the friend of the capitalist - it is by this tactic that the ruling class divide and conquer the working class. Look at the example of Affirmatibve Action for example... the working class is divided by being turned against itself... one group is given a greater opportunity than the other, and thus the two groups compete, one to defend their advantage, and one to withdraw this advantage. The conservative - even if he is an ethnic minoprity who AA is designed to protect, will seek to maintain the advantage of the white students (in this example) while the liberal - even if she is white - will aim to promote AA to reduce the impact of prejudice and discrimination in school and so on.

To be a communist is really to make two statements - that it is understood that it is incorrect for the white students to be advantaged over the other ethnic groups; but that we do not aim at increasing the opportunity or freedom of one part of the working class, we aim for radical changes in the social order which free the ENTIRE working class. We do not aim ultimately to reform a corrupt unfair system, we aim for this system to be dismantled, to cease to exist, and to be replaced by communist relations of production.

The liberal and the conservative may both me moral or amoral - both may act out of selfishness or perceived moral good - but both stand as the opponent of revolution. Those who stand for the revolution must understand that both ideologies must be swept aside.

If we are asked to choose between Bush and Kerry, my own feeling is that Kerry is a better choice because his reforms will reduce some of the worst suffering of the working class that exists right now, but we must understand Kerry is the enemy as much as Bush is... in fact reform can be dangerous because in the short term it can be a method of averting the unstoppable path of human history which leads us to communism, by appeasing the working class - a more right wing leader, more OPENLY and MORALISTICALLY capitalist may attack the working class far more strongly, which will lead to more immediate revolution.

Bringing Hitler into the discussion is trivializing it.

It instantly dilutes the entire argument into extreme examples of worst-case scenarios.

Why do you think there is a "Godwin's Law"? Do you think it is because of how valuable the addition of a comparison to Hitler is?

Should we now go down the road of how Bush is Hitler and the conservatives are trying to institute fascism?

Or should we, the conservatives, be as dismissive to this tactic as you are to ours?

It works both ways roach.

kma---

in certain situations, being warned that aspects of your politics present a fascist-style danger to all of us--you, me, all of us--as is the case here with anything like a claim to knowledge of absolute morality being floated from the right--from the right, not anyone else---being translated from a conceit of certain segments of a particular religious environment into mass politics---requires that one be graphic about it.

not all references to fascism are equivalent.
despite your rhetorical efforts to make them so.

as for "why "we" have godwin's law"--"we" do not have anything---there is this stupid "law" you refer to, and the effects that follow from invoking it. it is a device that you use to trivialilze associations with fascism that pertain to your politics. that's all it is. it is a way of avoiding these problems. it is a way of not addressing concerns.

in this case, more than in most others, it is obvious evasion: or perhaps you do not see any problems that might follow from this claim that the right now works from a standpoint of absolute morality, that evangelical protestant groups know what this absolute morality is, that they and they alone define it? coupled with the total intolerance of anyone and everyone who opposes them? if you have no problem with that, then say as much and defend the position--dont resort to some facile dodge.

[[caveat: not all fascism resulted in hitler. fascism is bigger than hitler--anyone who has studied it even a little is aware of that--the danger fascism poses now has to do with the formal continuities between it and aspects of contemporary conservative discourse--no-one is here equating bush and hitler, for christ's sake--there was mussolini, there was franco, there was japan in the 1930s-40s, there was peron, lots of variants....all radically nationalist, all willing to make absolute claims about elements of that nationalism, all interested in purifying the body politics, intolerant of dissent (minions of satan, dontcha know), etc.]]

I was just pointing out the fact that linking oneself to a strict set of morals is open to debate - while the example is extreme, it is a valid one.

Simplicity of thought does not equate to correctness or logical consistancy.

It would be simplistic to equate Bush to Hitler (or Bin Ladin), however, that is what must happen when you measure things using the ruler of absolute morality. I'm sure neither Hitler nor Bin Ladin would describe themselves as liberal or amoral. They DO pass the absolute morality test - it just points out that the morality test is a silly one to use because it logically throws up absurdities.

KMA-628: I Want to point out an excerpt from the first quote box in my opening post:
Please consider that roachboy's reference to fascism is to many of us, an accurate description of what the thugs you support in the Bush administration are about today, It is the inherent symptom of their malignant policy.

As you guys criticize this supposed "absolute morailty", you do the same thing.

Look at what you wrote in the quote above.....it levels criticisms in an absolute manner....equally absurd.

The "Christian Right" is a group, it is not the entire "right" as you claim. Just as the left has its wackos, so does the right. The wackos on the right concern you. The wackos on the left concern me. Both sets of wackos are trying (or have tried) to legislate how I/we should live, what is right, what is wrong, etc., they just do it from two different sides of the spectrum.

I am a member of the "Right", yet I don't believe in "absolute morality".

There are a lot of people on the right that feel as I do, yet you are quite happy to lump us all together, making an absolute argument......the problem is that you are very, very wrong and you are totally incapable of admitting it.

You spend post after post using an arrogant style of being dismissive to any thought that isn't anywhere near your own (dismissing someone's opinion as being of the "foxnews set").....yet you have a problem with someone using the same tactic.

Host -

Do you find it interesting that taking boths sides to the extreme leads to the same place?

My point being, that the concern of tyranny comes from all parts of the political spectrum, the "right" doesn't hold a copyright on the idea.

I am not concerned about it, personally. There are too many balances in place, especially in the 50/50 position this country is in. For every far-right politician, there is a far-left one.

Sounds like you are in agreement then - This topic is about the presumed amorality of liberals (or at least that's how I see it) This amorality might occasionally be used as an argument against a liberal point of view and has been used by those occupying the right. I'm not making any comment on leftist, or rightist politics, just stating that the morality argument itself is a logically inconsistant one. (or at least, that it legitimises elements that many would prefer not to legitimise)

Are we all in agreement here?

How many times does he need to remind you that he is speaking about the political machine when he references the "right" and not individual members here or operating in real life before you stop whining about him lumping you in with the party's platform?

That's odd that you care that this thread was Godwin'd. In the Schiavo thread the Nazi accusations were all over the place. I was the only one to say something about it.

KMA-628, my take is that it depends on what you perceive to be the "same place".

Take energy policy and environmental policy and enforcement, for example. The Bush administration is heavily influenced and subsidized by energy corporations and industrial polluters.
<a href="http://www.tpj.org/pioneers/icon_index.html">http://www.tpj.org/pioneers/icon_index.html</a>
An example is the Bush campaigns use of an Enron and Haliburton corporate planes during the 2000 election re-count:
The result of an extreme right EPA is a muzzled and neutered former enforcement agency, detailed in examples in my last post on this thread.
The effect of the right's penchant for selling their political influence to business interests is a dirtier, more toxic environment that literally makes people sick and threatens their longevity.

The effect of extreme left policy goals are wilderness set asides, possibly adverse economic impact because industry is forced to pay the expense of acting in an environmentally sensitive manner, slower growth, and higher raw material prices. As the mercury pollution argument in my last post mentions,
there may be a greater negatve economic impact from environmental mercury exposure, than from the savings to industry that the EPA manipulation and concealment of impact data presumably is motivated by.

Late 20th century western history seems to show us that environmental protection and resource conservation produces economic benefits in the form of tourism and recreation, healthcare savings, and in recycling and transportation and production process innovation.

I'll err on the side of the tree huggers on these issues. Loggers in the Pacific northwest may go hungry for a period of time, and lumber company shareholders and forest product consumers may be adversely affect economically, but less people will have health problems resulting from dismantling recent environmental protection rules and enforcement.

Another thread discusses an NC sheriff firing a department dispatcher for breaking an NC statute that prohibits unmarried cohabitation.

What negative civil impact would an extreme opposite statute pose? Would enactment of an NC statute that expressly encouraged cohabitation of unmarried couples result in anyone being fired from their job ?

I'm with you host.
Let's "err on the side of life."

Why doesn't that phrase get bandied about in discussions relating to health care and environmentalism?


Global warming is a contentious issue in the scientific community?
No problem, let's "err on the side of life."

Not quite sure about the impact of ANWR drilling?
"Err on the side of life," my friends.

Death Penalty: "err on the side of life"

Cuba: "err on the side of life"


But those statements aren't made. So it becomes apparent that, in so far that it actually is well thought out and originated from the speakers, that statement can not be based on a general principle/moral belief of respecting life in light of any degree of uncertainty and so long as risk is minimized by the error.

Hah. :thumbsup:

Plus it's been Godwin'd, so shouldn't it be off limits? :p

And the Nazi's weren't a culture, they were a political party. The culture didn't put up with it...that's why we had a war.

It's foolish to label either side as amoral. There are planty of people on both sides who are amoral. Stereotypes have no place in consideration of anything at any time, except maybe in humor or satire.

Either group calling the other amoral is a case of the pot calling the kettel black. Both sides have their lack or morals, as each side has it's morals.

i think maybe we need to define amoral. If it merely means "having different morals than me," then I completely agree. I don't think anyone has the same morals as anyone else, and thus this thread is a complete waste of time. As stated by Lebell. :thumbsup:
I'm a Psych major, so defining terms is very important, cause if you don't, it leads to confusion.
If that isn't your definition, please share what IS your definition?

lindsey,

what other definition of amoral are you aware of than "having no morals"?

for context, you might look at the original thread wherein this statement was first made toward "the amoral left" (on the topic of vindictiveness, one ought to peruse that gold nugget statement from a "fellow" TFPer).


Here's the link to the original thread, and at least the operational definition the person was employing:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=86200

But no one has NO morals...that would make the word merely an insult flung about with no actual thought behind it...Which could be the case, I suppose, but I wanted a definition that was actually applicable.
And amoral means no morals, but that could merely be "no morals in the sense that I understand them," which is the same as "different morals from myself." So there.

lindsey,

So there?
Why are you getting rude with me?

Read the thread I linked to answer your question better.
You seem like an intelligent gal, make up your own mind whether it was just an insult without thought behind it.

Amoral: adj. 1. Not admitting of moral distinctions or judgments; neither moral nor immoral.
2. Lacking moral sensibility; not caring about right and wrong.

Amoral to me means morality is inconsistant at best, nonexistant at worst. Liberals being amoral means that if they have morals, they don't stick with them. If they don't have morlas, then they have no morals to break.

I stick with what I said above. There are people on both sides willing to throw out morals for other reasons. Stereotyping one whole side as amoral is nonsense.

But that's not what Conservatives are throwing around these days. According to what you hear on message boards, radio, and virtually any political commentary by people on the far right we liberals are a bunch of gay loving, baby killing, porn loving degenerates. It's a lot more than just an insult without actual thought because it is a fairly popular belief.

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.

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.

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. :thumbsup:

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.

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.

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.

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. :eek:

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.