Timmyscape

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Evidently the Supreme Court Changes America's Values


Spoken from the popular Illinois Democratic Senator:

We need to recognize, because Judge Alito will be confirmed, that, if we're going to oppose a nominee that we've got to persuade the American people that, in fact, their values are at stake.

Since when did the Supreme Court change people's values and dictate what the American public see as right and wrong. Obviously, the Supreme Court and the Judiciary is behind discriminating against black people, disposing of fetuses, selling assault weapons, taking people's homes, sodomizing others, and denying certain people civil rights. What's really behind the shit that goes on in our country is not the courts but rather people, sinful people. Laws don't dictate values, morality does....but this is why liberals often determine their sense of right and wrong based on what's legal rather than by what is moral.

**Additions 1/30/06
First, to see another's intellectual support for the last fairly controversial statement please read the Prager's article.
Second, I did not mean to make such a bold statement without additional proof and I thought Prager's article was enough. I'll explain further... I did not mean to label "liberals" or "democrats" as immoral people at all but rather that coastal far left (probably 20-30%) in this country tends to derive their sense of right/wrong from themselves (personal experience/feelings), the law, and science rather than a religious or philisophical text. I know that there are a number of Democrats and left leaning individuals who believe in God or are principled/moral people. In fact, there's a strong contingent of the evangelical left at my church (Blackhawk E-Free) and I respect their political ideals (though on a number of fronts I won't agree with them mostly due to my economic/philisophical beliefs). But let's face the facts, there's a huge divide morally in this country which is mostly set along geographical/political lines. Here's a hypothetical study, many of the sort which have been done before revolving around morality. You ask a sample size of 100 people questions revolving around moral relativism, moral absolutism, God, etc. and go to the bluest of places (Portland, Berkely, Madison, West Manhattan, DC, Boston, Miami) and then to the reddest of places (Atlanta, Dallas, Salt Lake City, suburban Milwaukee, Tulsa) and see how their answers vary. You will find that on average that not only do people's views on politics and religion change but their morality is often based on entirely different things. The blue places will have a much more relativist stance with their beliefs not derived from God but rather from personal experience and society. The red places will have a much more absolutist stance with their beliefs more likely to stem from Biblical principles.
So indeed, you can be very liberal, Christian, and believe that the government should be a strong economic distributive force and be very permissive in terms of marriage, drugs, abortion, speech, etc. This is okay from my perspective if one can rationalize their political beliefs strongly and many people can. But obviously if they are a strong Christian (ie take the bible's teachings seriously) and if they are very politically liberal, then they are justifying the government not taking action on the basis of morality which brings me to my last and final point: Most people in the United States want the government to legislate their morality--both on the left and right. Generally, the left wants the government to impose state health care which they see as a public good and personal right. They like freedom in terms of drug use because they do not see drugs as immoral. They don't want religious thought in public schools or the public square because they'd rather see our society be extremely secular than faith based. On the other side, the right wants to see drug use curtailed because they see it as a sinful act. They don't want gays to be able to marry or even have civil union rights because they see gay relationships as immoral. They want abortion to be banned because they see a human being at conception. My point here is that people want to legislate their morality on others but even when the Supreme Court makes a decision, does it really change people's values on a subject? Not really because often the laws and statutes don't reflect the whole range of perspectives. I believe that the majority of this country derives their morality from something much deeper in the way of religion, philosophies, and social norms rather than the Supreme Court. So when Obama made this false statement, I wanted to share my opinion. I did not mean to label certain groups but the generalizations are clear and I feel I've backed them up fully now.

2 Comments:

  • Timmy -

    I think I'm gonna have to go with Kellie on this one. While you are right that it is inappropriate to decide morality simply based on legality, or to equate law with morality, it is equally inappropriate to simply label "liberalism" as "immorality." Likewise, it is simply wrong to simply assert that the positions you pointed out are either (a) liberal at all, or (b) immoral.

    As Kellie gets at, religious people and religious institutions can themselves become immoral. Some of the worst atrocities in human history, not to mention many of the more mundane tragedies of everyday life stem out of religious intolerance. And, finally, you can indeed be moral without subscribing to the specific form of (christian?) religious that you seem to be espousing.

    I love your blog, and your thoughts on topics generally. And maybe this was just a quickie. But, please, give us a discussion, not just a bald statement.

    By Blogger Nate, at 2:32 AM  

  • Thanks for posting. I take your concerns seriously and hopefully I addressed some of them with my further commentary. I did not make that last statement up..it is Dennis Prager's main thesis in one of his articles. Continue to criticize some of my vauge or poorly worded statements. Also criticize my claims and evidence. This is how I and everyone learns more.

    By Blogger Tim, at 12:54 PM  

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