Let’s talk about Moral Values

Great Debates
21

Firstly I think it would have been more intellectually honest to just have asked the question in the true intention, that is, to have come out and say you just want an explanation for Election 2004.

Because a set of morals can be personal or social, religious or not, et cetera. Morals is a huge philosophical argument for which there can be no easy explanation or conclusion.

22% of Americans reported that moral values was the biggest issue for them in the 2004 Election, 80% of those voters cast a vote for President Bush.

That’s an interesting statistic in that is the largest percentage any one issue received as far as “most important” goes. But it is a misleading statistic, with overrepresentation in states that John Kerry never had a shade of a chance of winning in and for a lot more issues than just moral values.

In the 11 real battleground states (Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) only three reported moral values as their biggest issue (Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Mexico.) And in those three states, one voted for Senator Kerry and two voted for President Bush.

The value of the two states that went for Bush (Iowa and New Mexico) is 11 electoral votes, that doesn’t change the election results.

You might look to another issue, terrorism, as a bigger deciding factor. John Kerry did not identify with people who felt terrorism was a huge issue, and that is a big problem for any candidate. He lost Florida because he couldn’t sell himself on terrorism if Kerry had just SPLIT the Florida vote amongst people who felt terrorism was the number one issue, he would have won Florida and the Presidency. If he had just gotten 30% of those voters in Ohio (compared to the abysmal 10%) he would have won in Ohio, and again, won the Presidency.

To get back to your question most voters who think their moral values are the most important are conservative christians who are anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage. But I think everyone already knew that.

22

It should be pointed out that “moral values” was on a list of reasons posed to exit voters. It could be that they were looking for a vague answer, because they didn’t like being asked, but were too polite not to answer
[This](http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/10116706.htm?template=contentModules/
printstory.jsp&1c) articles gives several possible answers, but the sum total of it is that there isn’t an answer. :smack:

23

When I did a google for moral values, voter response, polls I went right to the article. Now the link is to sign up to become a member, and even google won’t do the same thing. If anyone is interested I copied the article before closing it and I’ll email it to you. :confused: [sub]nothing seems to be working[/sub]

24

I think you overestimate the intelligence of Bush voters, and underestimate their capacity for doublethink.

What Bush voters really meant was, “When I go to church my mullah says there’s these things called ‘moral values’ and it’s good to have them, and that Bush has them and Kerry doesn’t.”

They don’t know what moral values are, they’re just parroting what they’ve heard from their mullahs and from hate radio.

As for the doublethink, look at the clear evidence: Rove attacked Kerry on the basis of his courage, despite the clear evidence, undisputed by anyone, that Kerry saw active duty in one of the most hazardous posts in Vietnam, whereas Bush bravely avoided serving in Vietnam through his “service” in the National Guard. The fact that the Bush voters weren’t able to make this very, very clear distinction implies a truly breathtaking capacity for doublethink.

25

Orbifold:

But if homosexuality is a plot to corrupt youth and causes earthquakes and hurricanes, then that’s why it’s immoral and should be eliminated from society. It doesn’t make sense to say “It’s not immoral for me” despite the fact that it causes these awful things that effect others. Of course, it’s anti-gay prejudice that’s immoral because it causes misery for a lot of people in exchange for no benefit for society whatsoever. You could argue that it would be immoral for yourself to engage in homosexual behavior because it goes against your nature, but it doesn’t make sense to embrace two contradictory views on the behavior of a third person. Upon reviewing all the facts, the ones who are revealed to be wrong are the ones who should abandon their position. A lot of people used to consider race-mixing to be immoral, now it’s pretty much universally held that racism is immoral.

Most behaviors have both positive and negative implications. Moral valuation is an equation where you determine which outweighs the other. There’s a problem when people disagree on priorities (jobs vs the environment) or when not all the facts are available, but if someone completely disregards threats to the environment–tradition or no–they are morally deficient.

Again on race, our emotional response upon encountering someone with radically different appearance is fear and loathing. We need to rationally consider the fact that we’re all the same on the inside for a proper moral response.

26

“Morals,” like “quality,” is just a word. White supremacists have morals. They believe that to be a good citizen, you must separate the races. That’s their moral code. It doesn’t match up with mine, but nonetheless, it’s a moral that is incorporated into a life as a guide on how to live.

Morals are meaningless in a diverse society such as ours. That’s why we have laws. You can’t make a person respect blacks or women or the elderly…all of which are in line with MY morals. But you CAN make those who have a different set of morals behave as if they hold the same morals I do, or they will be punished.

27

"At least when the Emperor Justinian, a Christian monotheist, decided to outlaw sodomy, he had to come up with a good practical reason, which he did. It is well known, Justinian declared, that buggery is a principal cause of earthquakes, and so must be prohibited. But our monotheists, always eager to hate, still quote Leviticus, as if that loony text had anything useful to say about anything except, perhaps, the inadvisability of eating shellfish in the Jerusalem area. "

  • Gore Vidal, Monotheism and its Discontents
28

You phrase it as if that was the answer that people were volunteering. Exit pollsters offered a multiple choice questionniare in which people were required to pick a single reason for their vote. IIRC, “Moral values” has never before been listed as an option. IMO the amorphous “Moral values” drew a lot of votes because there was no “just sorta everything all together” category.

“Iraq” and “War on Terror” were kept seperate; if you see them as parts of the same thing, as most pubs do, they were #1.

29

I guess I always vote for a President based on “moral issues.” Pro-diplomacy, anti-war, compassion for the economically disadvantaged, the elderly, the sick, respect for the equal rights of all citizens, protection of natural resources, etc. These are moral values too.

But, under certain circumstances, I would probably violate each part of a traditional “moral code.” I would kill, lie and steal under certain circumstances. (I still kill spiders if they are poisonous and around the house. I would probably try to stop someone who was going to harm someone in my family or maybe me. I would tell a “white lie” – or at least skirt the truth – to keep from hurting a child and I would steal to prevent something worse from happening.)

And I’m sure that my motives for a lack of total honesty have not always been so altruistic.

30

Ah. So that explains San Francisco! The things you miss without a classical education!

::: ducks and runs :::

31

Gee, with all the sodomy going on around here, you’d think we’d get more than that 4.5 every six or seven years that rattles the piano keys.

32

Or maybe Bush voters didn’t give a damn about either man’s “personal bravery” because it has little bearing on the running of a nation.

BTW take it from someone that has observed American religious life from the Northeast to the Deep South, 99.99% of all pastors or preachers or priests (Christians don’t have mullahs btw, need to check out your dictionary and probably encyclopedia, Muslims have mullahs and the majority of Muslims in America probably don’t vote Bush) never ever even imagine mentioning politics in the Church.

33

When I use the term “mullahs” I an using shorthand to refer to the conservative, often fundamentalist Christian whatevers who ARE politically active – and there are a LOT of them. Some are Catholics, like the bishops who announced they would deny communion to Kerry because he supported abortion rights. WTF do you think that was? Most are evangelicals and/or fundies, however. Do you think the term “religious right” describes only people who go to church? Do you think their singular power within the Republican Party came about by accident? Sorry, but a LOT of preachers are hopping on the political bandwagon, and they’re really no different from the Wahhabi mullahs in Saudi Arabia, except that they don’t enjoy the absolute powers of life and death that the Saudi Arabian mullahs do.

34

(getting a mental picture of massive sex happening and the ground splitting open) Heh-heh.

35

Actually, you would think that masturbation, aka “onanism” would be more likely to cause earthquakes, since when you “spill your seed upon the ground” it lubricates the tectonic places.

36

Plates! Tectonic plates.

37

Well you can use Mullah however you want but in the context you are using it right now it’s just plain wrong.

Also there are a great many Mullah’s (and a Mullah is just a man heavily educated in the Qur’an) and Wahhabism is a small sect in Islam.

Also, to refer to Catholics as Christian fundamentalists is factually incorrect. Catholics have a system in place for analyzing the bible and interpreting it that goes completely against the fundamentalist form of “inerrant scripture.”

Furthermore the Republican party won the Presidential election based on terrorism, an issue that Bush convinced people 80-20 in favor of himself that he was better at handling. That’s the issue that delivered him Florida and the election.

Moral values was a big issue, but in states that didn’t have a chance in hell of switching from red to blue or vice versa this election.

Also just some FYI Evangelical/Born Again Christians represented about 34% of Bush’s electorate. Of course a smaller number of people reported “moral values” as their number one issue than named themselves “born again Christians” so obviously the Evangelical block isn’t a monolith.

38

(please refer to post #19 for the full text)

so there are people who’s ok with premarital sex, and there are those who’s not. morality is relative to which side you’re on. the fact that it is the status quo and those who practise it do not label themselves as immoral heathens should say something, without having to look into reasonings.

while i do not doubt it happens, i find it difficult to believe that it of a frequency great enough to warrant as a typical example. (a pair of lovers having sex reluctantly?) regardless, you made it sound like a person will have to whore themselves to have a decent chance in the mating game. understanding and accepting the other side’s moral point of view is, well, moral. however, if one were to do something one felt was immoral for the sake of an objective then it is immoral, however you may view it.

i am unfamiliar with this topic, so i’ll just wager that if there was a time where most thinks it is moral, then it is. thankfully, that viewpoint did not endure as majority.

taking this at face value, it illustrates my point well enough. *if * society is split evenly about this, then it is up to said society to come to terms with both sides and share the bread evenly/fairly; otherwise, it may well split into two separate societies. this is in no way however, an immoral vs the moral, good vs evil comparison. it’s all a matter of perspective.

how is it moral to deprive the intelligent and/or hardworking folks of their rewards for contributing to society?

i agree. i do not see how these benefits society at all.

then being unable to empathise with the other side’s morality is immoral; expecially so when one expects a sizable portion, if not the majority to conform to one’s view.

if everybody is doing it, then it is moral to the same ‘everybody’. should said morals be destructive and/or detrimental to society as a whole, the situation will correct itself soon enough. we are not lemmings after all.

39

shijinn:

Sorry, but we’re going to have to call you on this. This is a perfect example of how desructie moral relativism can be. Slavery always was and always will be immoral. Anyone who thinks otherwise is evil and wrong, period.

40

You’re right, it’s a new use of the term and I should have defined it more carefully before using it, or used another term. Look for it to be used more often, though, as its particular aptness wrt the American religious right becomes more and more evident to all. Whether it’s Mullah Robertson or Mullah Falwell, or Mullah Achmed, they’re all pretty much the same.

I gotta call you on this. The Wahhabis have influence far beyond their numbers (much like the American Mullahs) because part of the deal the House of Saud set up to rule Saudi Arabia was pouring money into the Wahhabis and setting up free Wahabbi schools all over Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world, where they teach that Americans are the Great Satan and women should be treated like cattle or worse.

What’s that word they have about some Papal pronouncements? “Infallible” I believe? It’s not EXACTLY the same thing, but it’s pretty durned close to it, isn’t it? Point is, some Catholic bishops have been blurring the line between church and state, pushing pretty much the same conservative values that fundies do, especially wrt issues like abortion and gaymarriage. They’re Catholic Mullah’s just like the fundie Mullahs. Fie on 'em both.

All the polls after the election indicated that there was a huge religious right turnout, almost all of it voting for Bush. Do ya think they didn’t swing the election in the swing states, specifically … Ohio? If they hadn’t really poured it on on election day, we’d now be talking about President Kerry, not President Bush. Some mainstream voters might have been swayed by terror talk, but it was the Mullahs and their sheeple that brought the bacon home for Bush.

I’m not sure what your point here is.