Talk Elections

Since this seems to have come up allot with people that voted for president Bush, what are these moral values?  What do they mean to you in a presdient? 

Ensuring that all Americans have an equal opportunity to succeed, regardless of their family history or personal history. Ensuring that one's attainment of wealth is in a direct one to one correlation with one's hard work, creativity, ingenuity, and overall contribution to society.

To me, it is extremely immoral to support the interests of big business and the wealthy when they are in opposition to the interests of the vast majority of all others, which is more often than not the case.

So when I think moral values, I think of selflessness, and helping those who are worse off than yourself. Trusting people, and helping them to the fullest extent of your ability--that to me embodies morality.

Then you don't believe in property rights.

If I'm a billionaire and I give someone a million dollars, you're going to step in and tell me it's not fair. That of course is absurd. What's not fair is you dishonoring my wealth by telling me I can't spend it as I wish.

The right to property always comes from people.

I don't know about everyone else, but I feel morally obliged to protect our natural resources for our children, and for their children

Moral values:
--marriage
--life
--work
--freedom

Kerry doesn't match any of those values.

Yes, I forgot to mention that one. Protecting the environment for future generations is morally right.

Phillip--I do believe in property rights, but I also believe in an acknowledgement by all of the ways in which we earn more money due to the existence of government. I feel that it is morally right to help others, and to acknowledge that we all make more money due to the help of others, too.

Many government programs make society function more effectively and more efficiently, and thus increase the wealth and prosperity of all.

I look at the issue of more values holistically.  Moral values don't really exist as an end in themselves, but to foster the betterment of society.

Strong moral values lead to stronger families, lower crime and ultimately a better economy.  Weak moral values lead ultimately to poverty, a weak family structure and greater human misery.

I think the role of moral values has been seriously distorted.  Those of us who support moral values are called intolerant by people who equate any type of behavior standard with judgment and hate.  These people fail to recognize how high moral values would be of immense benefit in achieving the goals they claim to have.

I think that declining moral values have played a role in widening the gap between rich and poor.  Illegitimacy, broken families, drug use, etc. have trapped many in hopeless poverty and denied educational opportunities to whole classes of children.

Many liberals seem to believe that we can have the type of society that they claim to want without moral values.  This is just not the case.  There should be more of a consensus between conservatives and liberals on the importance of moral values.

There is one.  From what I can see, the disagreement is over what those moral values are, not whether they should exist.

Building a New Jerusalem

Well said. I do agree that strong values are necessary in the betterment of and empowerment of the family, but this requires a combination of economic proactivity as well as a recognition of the importance of responsiblity.

People must be responsible in their decisions, and liberals should stress this more. At the same time, conservatives need to trust the poor to do the right thing when given a fair opportunity, and a failure to do this and a mistrust of those on the bottom of the economic spectrum has led many to be completely unable to succeed due to the nature of our economic system, and thus forced them into crime and poverty.

There is a responsibility on both sides to acknowledge the basic goodness of the other, and to work together to promote both responsibility and social tolerance.

What´s the difference between "strong" and "weak" moral values? Maybe you are you confused with the difference between authoritarian/intolerant values and liberal/tolerant values, but the latter are just as strong (or as weak) as the first. Nobody favours a society without values because that would be impossible, and because that would be a value itself.

Weak moral values mean that you consider having a child out of wedlock to be as valid a choice as having a child inside marriage, despite what we know about all the financial and psychological disadvantages that children from single-parent homes suffer.

You're right that having no values is a value in itself, and this is the value that many liberals preach.

Liberals often preach individual freedom with socialized responsibility, meaning that people can do whatever they want, and pass the consequences of their actions onto society at large.  This has become the bedrock of modern liberal philosophy.  It will never lead to anything but more problems.

Abortion is the Biggest Issue to me. I also think Gay Marrige is about morals. However there are many things more important than that.

Moral values - ask as many people as you like, but few people will have the exact same definition when you get into the nitty gritty details.

My personal sense of morality comes from two things - a respect for the rights of the individual and a respect for life in general, and the two really intermingle often.

I personally think that you're being way too general in this assertion.  Simply the fact that someone considers having a child out of wedlock to be as fine as having a child inside marriage means that that person has weaker morals than someone who thinks differently?  I was a child born out of wedlock and I grew up in a single-parent home and I turned out just fine.  You have no idea why the person believes this idea, and context is extremely important.  If someone believes that idea because that person doesn't care about the child, then it could be asserted that that person perhaps has weaker morals than others, but only if that was true.

Morals are, on the whole, extremely subjective.  What is perceived as moral today may have not been perceived as moral 500 years ago and may not be perceived as moral 500 years in the future.  Even today, what you regard as moral may not be what someone else regards as moral at this very instant, and there is no real standard to be used to gauge which one is right or wrong, if anyone really is.  Of course, everyone is going to believe that their version is the correct one, but that doesn't mean anything.


Huh?


Not to my knowledge.  It's true that many liberals, including myself, think that a lot of problems people have in the world are at least partly the fault of society and partly out of the individual's hands, but I've never once advocated the position that that gives the individual a free ride.  I very strongly believe in personal responsibility for one's actions.

Moral Values:

-Rationality
-Independence
-Honesty
-Integrity
-Productiveness
-Pride
-Justice

A fine list. :)

I would agree on the whole, except for "pride".  It's immoral not to be proud?

I wouldn't think so. Pride is a fine thing to have if you ask me, so long as it is pride that can be justified. Arrogance on the other hand...

I'm not saying that pride is a bad thing; I'm just questioning its being listed as a "moral value".

Values are totally personal and individual.  I have no business caring about what others preferences are, and they have no business knowing about mine.

You need to be proud of your accomplishments and your life.  Believing in yourself is very important morally.  Someone without pride is someone who hates himself.

That's a neat value you have.

It can be summed up in the sentiment 'F**K OFF'.

I want to bring this thread back. I want to go further into the bedrock than this.

Moral Values are the values you personaly hold to be the way you conduct yourself. Now, there are two ways to view this-

- You can't legislate morality because you can't force people to change their beleifs. However, you can legislate ethics and discipline and you could possibly legislate the definition of who is allowed to participate in society.

So instead of thinking of this as a morality issue, I tend to think of this as an enfranchisement/ common good issue. Are outsiders too dangerous to be included or do they add to the collective wisdom of our society and the common good.

So actually, there are several major themes that come up which bring up other themes-

Some questions we need to talk about are:

Is there a common good?
What is the common good?
Who has access to the common good?
Who decides what the common good is?
How do we perpetuate the common good?
What are the goals of perpetuating the common good?
What are the consequences of avoiding the common good?
Are there parts of the common good that conflict?
Could the common good be different?
Can we change the common good?
Would changing the common good be a good thing?
How do we change the common good?

So...

Why did George W Bush overwhelming win the "moral values" category if these were the qualifications?

He has pride....I think.

The phrase "moral values" has become a code phrase for conservative Christian values, even though conservative Christians do not have a monopoly on moral values. Many liberal ideas (such as racial and gender equality, providing for the poor, free speech, pacifism, etc.) could be seen as moral values.

I think a better label would be "legally imposed interpersonal ethics"...but that is a mouth full, isn't it?  A more accurate term could be "Ethics Standardization".

Oh these issues are so divisive but shouldn't be. There is a small gray area of moral values. This DOES NOT mean that we should say "to each his own" because we wouldn't be saying that if someone else's moral decisions effected us. I like a candidate who does stand up for their moral values and hate a candidate who like Kerry says "focus on issues that unite us." What this means is "you nailed me, I have no values so let's change the subject to something I can win on." Nice job Kerry I'm so glad you lost.

Yeah, I'm glad Kerry lost as well. And in case you didn't notice, McCain and Bush (in 2000) also tried to focus on issues that united us. Kerry does have moral values otherwise he wouldn't have served in Vietnam or had a career in public service.

I like this list, expect for maybe Pride.

I've always been a fan of John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism where the greatest good for the greatest number of people prevails rather than a mob mentality of majority rules. This is why I like the electoral college so much.

The electoral college is also directly related to the popular vote of each state. And it is very rare for the PV and EV winners to differ.

That's true it's only happened 4 times. In a close election though sometimes it is necessary for the majority to lose to prevent the mob mentality.

How do you determine in which elections that is necessary, though? The EC is so random that it made two PV winners (Cleveland and Gore) lose the election while far worse men won those elections and screwed over our country afterwards.

What are you saying? Bush and McCain did focus on issues that unite people but also weren't afraid to take a controversial or unpopular stance if that's where they stood. Think of Kerry's service what you want, but if he were moral, he'd pay taxes on his 76 foot New Zealand yacht. Gosh who would want to tax something like that? lol

Kerry was unafraid to risk his life to serve in Vietnam. And Kerry did pay taxes on his yacht afterwards, even though I agree that he did a bad thing by not paying those taxes in the first place.

What do moral values mean to you?

Hating the homo's. Duh.

;)

Moral values mean having substance and not just pretty speeches. It means attending a disaster rather than cracking jokes and drinking at a $28,000 a plate Hollywood dinner. It means standing up to unrepentant terrorists and child molesters. It means minding your own business and respecting the limits of your power. It means not taking what doesn't belong to you. It means paying the taxes that you owe according to law. It means listening to those who have questions.

If you're talking about attending disasters, then Bush was celebrating McCain's birthday with him on the day of Hurricane Katrina instead of visiting the victims and their families.