Liberals are moral relativists. They don't believe in moral absolutes. They don't have standards that can serve as guideposts to themselves and others. If you ask people in Middle America what they think about liberal values, they will tell you that they don't exist.
Is this a valid criticism? Has the placement of personal freedom and individual responsibility above broadly accepted social standards put liberals out of step with contemporary culture?
If liberals act out of strong moral principles, why can't they articulate them in convincing ways? How is it that the conservative movement has siezed the moral high ground?
How have we managed to let every argument over civil rights, personal dignity, privacy, justice, economic opportunity, education, public health and environmental preservation be converted into public safety, war on terrorism, economic competitiveness, self interest and job growth?
Do we think that the evil of terrorism trumps the need to behave by correct moral principles?
How can we accept a justification that the deaths of 3,000 of our citizens in the World Trade Center is equivalent to the deaths of 14,000 to 16,000 civilians in Iraq when it is clear that there was no relationship between the Twin Towers attack and the Iraq invasion? This is not just a gross disparity. It is a logical hiatus masquerading as a syllogism.
How can we accept a President who argues that liberals are engaging in historical revisionism when he himself repeatedly revised his reasons for going to war?
"This nation acted to a threat from the dictator of Iraq," Bush said. "Now there are some who would like to rewrite history -- revisionist historians is what I like to call them."
"Saddam Hussein was a threat to America and the free world in '91, in '98, in 2003. He continually ignored the demands of the free world, so the United States and friends and allies acted."
-G.W. Bush, Elizabeth New Jersey, June 16, 2003
Are these just relatively minor slip-ups that are subject to interpretation or explanation? No. They are lies and distortions. They are deceptions, and they are immoral.
