Public Morality vs. Private Morality

I was involved in a thread the other day that touched on what I believe is a fundamental difference in the way liberals and conservatives approach "values." And I think it sheds light both on a fundamental difference in substance between conservatives and liberals and an important weakness in the approach the Democratic Party has taken in discussing values. I lay much of this problem at the feet of the DLC, and its strange obsession with the hot button issues of the wingnuts - gay marriage, choice, etc. - all issues of private morality.

Specifically, the referenced discussion was based on a Tacitus posting about the so-called "polygamous" marriage in the Netherlands reported on recently. I'll discuss that specific issue in extended [Now deleted because it distracted from my point] but want to focus on the more important problem of the Democratic myopia on "values."

I believe that the liberal political perspective focuses its application of values in the public arena, eschewing the impulse to dictate how people should live their private lives and what their personal moral codes should be. This principle is raised to a Constitutional level through the First Amendment and its guarantee of separation of church and state and through the Constitutional guarantee of privacy and liberty rights. Our public morality is demonstrated in our principles of governance in the exercise of the power to "promote the general welfare."

Our morality is reflected in the central principle of governance for liberals, the Common good:

ARMANDO: I'm selfish just like everybody else. I'm lucky. I have my job, I have my health care and haven't thought about it but your description of it just now really got to me and it makes me wonder if Dems are using it properly.

McDERMOTT: But you are absolutely right and, you see, I mean, by the way if there's anything that's lost, that we've lost for awhile, it's the sense of the common good. You are honest enough to tell me that that's exactly how you thought. You are thinking about yourself. I've got a job, I've got health care, I've got, you know, I'm doing OK, so it's not a problem.

Well Reagan started us down the road, not that he was the first, but he was the one that articulated best when he said: "are you better off this year than you were last year or four years ago?" The question should be are we better off than we were four years ago and the fact is that as a country and as a people and as a middle-class, we are not . . . and that's why I think the biggest thing that's missing in the Democratic Party is that we have lost the idea of the common good.

The irony is that our emphasis on public morality is informed by religious thought:

In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you.

And so to is the liberal rejection of governmental intervention in private morality informed by religious thought:

Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

It seems clear to me that the core principles of liberalism are value laden in ways that are easy to defend and worthy of embrace and pride. There is no reason for liberals and Democrats to avoid a debate on values. Indeed, the only authentic way to argue the liberal and Democratic position is to talk about our values. Without them, we stand for nothing.