Cross posted from
West Massholes, which I just started up again... the events of the last few days set me off a bit, so I apologize if I seem a little p'oed.
As Americans, we talk a lot about morality. The religious right throws the term around as if they own the rights and all properties tied to it. The Republican party bills itself as the party of morality, claiming to be for "family values". With all of this, I have to wonder:
-What is moral about a war that has killed as many people as the events of 9/11/2001?
-What is moral about destroying a nearly-800-year-old basic human right, even when there is a possibility that these people could be innocent?
-What is moral about allowing the President to decide to torture, particularly when there are other ways to get information?
-What is moral about a United States Congressman initiating conversations with a 16-year-old boy in a sexually explicitly nature?
-What is moral about that same Congressman having his actions covered up by leaders of his political party, and only dealt with in the confines of the House Page orientation?
-What is moral about members of the United States Congress looking the other way at sexual and other abuses on the Northern Mariana Islands?
-What is moral about a President who lies to the American people (and yes, that goes for BOTH sides of the aisle, though it is quite sad that the vitriol that was directed at a President's indiscretions with a 23-year-old intern have not returned when a President lied about both the reasons of going to Iraq and the realities of going to war with Iraq)?
Wikipedia defines morality as
the concept of human ethics which pertains to matters of "good and evil" also referred to as "right or wrong", used within three contexts: individual conscience; systems of principles and judgments sometimes called moral values shared within a cultural, religious, secular, Humanist, or philosophical community; and codes of behavior or conduct.
For me, this one is quite simple. What is good and moral is providing for the better good of all of humanity, and providing basic services for the people without finding ways to justify giving worse services to certain sectors of society. It is not about finding ways to divide and conquer, to create fear, or to take the low ground when it comes to something like torture, as so many members of Congress have done by allowing George W. Bush to define the Geneva Convention by his own definition. What can or will we say when other states decide to justify the torture of American captives? To take the high moral ground, in my mind, it is not simply to throw words and phrases like "cut and run" or "tax and spend" around to belittle or demonize your opponents. It's to better society by working for a better place based on real collaboration (and by collaboration, I mean real working together, not enabling, as we have seen in this Congress)
But who knows? I may be crazy. So, what's your take on morality?