That Confusing Morality Thing
They still just don't get it:
Derrick Johnson, Boston Globe columnist (here), parallels morality voters with road-rage murderers and NBA thugs. Why is America so boorish? he asks, then he answers: You cannot expect much else in a nation where we claim to vote on moral values but reelected a trash-talking president.
Also in the Boston Globe (not linkable, except to subscribers) in the Nov. 7 Ideas Section, Rick Perlstein wrote, "We've already heard a lot about the rise of the evangelical vote in this presidential election. Well, God-fearing middle Americans who also fear for their families' economic security would be far more likely to vote their economic interests - rather than on matters like gay marriage and abortion - if the Democratic Party beat a public retreat from a politics that condones or even celebrates the Wal-Martization of America and the world. This is the way forward for the Democrats." Sorry, but that's just wrong. People of faith care more about stopping abortion and getting God back into schools than they do about their paychecks. It's ironic that Liberals find that incomprehensible, since they supposedly always put humanity above economy.
Ken Fireman and Thomas Frank, writing the the November 7 issue of Newsday quoted a couple in-the-dark Dem commentators:
"Voters don't know what we stand for," [Dem strategist Donna] Brazile said. "They view Democrats as godless and gutless. We cannot concede the moral ground to Republicans because it impedes our ability to talk to voters on what they do agree with us on, which is jobs and health care." [Which aren't moral issues; they're economic]
Many Democrats suggested their problem was not their stand on issues but their articulation. "If you can say anything about this campaign, people did not know at the end of it so much what the Democrats were for as much as what we were against," said former Bill Clinton speechwriter Bob Boorstin, a national security analyst at the liberal Center for American Progress. "It's really not so much of an ideological thing as it is a clarity thing." [How exactly do you position partial birth abortion as moral?]
Boorstin and Brazile both said Democrats have to learn to frame their issues as values questions, just as Republicans have. "Why should poverty be any less of a faith issue than gay marriage?" Boorstin said. [So clueless ... poverty is an economic issue, as evidenced by the fact that poor people and wealthy people often share the same morals.]
They get it:
John Leo in U.S. News & World Report (here) who articulates the cunundrum: Why is the imposition of a Christian's beliefs represhensible, but a secularist's beliefs can be applied at will without a peep of outrage? Excerpt:
The "don't impose" people make little effort to be consistent, deploring, for example, Roman Catholics who act on their church's beliefs on abortion and stem cells but not those who follow the pope's insistence that the rich nations share their wealth with poor nations or his opposition to the death penalty and the invasion of Iraq. If the "don't impose" people wish to mount a serious argument, they will have to attack "imposers" on both sides of the issues they discuss--not just their opponents. They will also have to explain why arguments that come from religious beliefs are less worthy than similar arguments that come from secular principles or simply from hunches or personal feelings. Nat Hentoff, a passionate opponent of abortion, isn't accused of imposing his opinions, because he is an atheist. The same arguments and activity by a Christian activist would most likely be seen as a violation of some sort.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reader Gery Steighner submitted an excellent essay on the subject (here), which summarizes well, by pointing out that we're expected to understand them, no reciprocation is needed: Yet the secular elites who profess faith in tolerance won't do the work to achieve a compassionate understanding of moral traditionalists who have deep faith in the law of God as they see it. Thus is explained, in part, the left's angry befuddlement at the results of this election.
In the same Boston Globe "Idea" piece Rick Perlstein is quoted from above, Elaine Kamarck writes, "The fact that Clinton never paid a price within his party for his own mistakes continues to give many Americans the impression that we are a party that is as out of the mainstream on traditional moral questions as the Hollywood celebrities who endorse us. The first step to reclaiming the moral mantle is to stop adoring Bill Clinton the rock star and go back to some of the bedrock, forward-looking middle-class policies that made Clinton's presidency successful in spite of his behavior." How true. One of my incredible daughters was a presidential scholar in junior high. When she saw the certificate was signed by Clinton, she tossed it aside and said, "I don't want this!" Now 18, she voted proudly for Bush.
Ending with a threat:
This from the Nov. 7 New York Times:
Yet gay rights' advocates will need to grapple with the surge in voting by evangelical Christians and those who ranked ''moral values'' first among their concerns. ''When the right wing attacks us it hurts, but it can help,'' Ms. Bonauto said. ''This is going to be an enormous unifying force for us. They had a good day, so to speak. But not as good a day as they think they had.''
Derrick Johnson, Boston Globe columnist (here), parallels morality voters with road-rage murderers and NBA thugs. Why is America so boorish? he asks, then he answers: You cannot expect much else in a nation where we claim to vote on moral values but reelected a trash-talking president.
Also in the Boston Globe (not linkable, except to subscribers) in the Nov. 7 Ideas Section, Rick Perlstein wrote, "We've already heard a lot about the rise of the evangelical vote in this presidential election. Well, God-fearing middle Americans who also fear for their families' economic security would be far more likely to vote their economic interests - rather than on matters like gay marriage and abortion - if the Democratic Party beat a public retreat from a politics that condones or even celebrates the Wal-Martization of America and the world. This is the way forward for the Democrats." Sorry, but that's just wrong. People of faith care more about stopping abortion and getting God back into schools than they do about their paychecks. It's ironic that Liberals find that incomprehensible, since they supposedly always put humanity above economy.
Ken Fireman and Thomas Frank, writing the the November 7 issue of Newsday quoted a couple in-the-dark Dem commentators:
"Voters don't know what we stand for," [Dem strategist Donna] Brazile said. "They view Democrats as godless and gutless. We cannot concede the moral ground to Republicans because it impedes our ability to talk to voters on what they do agree with us on, which is jobs and health care." [Which aren't moral issues; they're economic]
Many Democrats suggested their problem was not their stand on issues but their articulation. "If you can say anything about this campaign, people did not know at the end of it so much what the Democrats were for as much as what we were against," said former Bill Clinton speechwriter Bob Boorstin, a national security analyst at the liberal Center for American Progress. "It's really not so much of an ideological thing as it is a clarity thing." [How exactly do you position partial birth abortion as moral?]
Boorstin and Brazile both said Democrats have to learn to frame their issues as values questions, just as Republicans have. "Why should poverty be any less of a faith issue than gay marriage?" Boorstin said. [So clueless ... poverty is an economic issue, as evidenced by the fact that poor people and wealthy people often share the same morals.]
They get it:
John Leo in U.S. News & World Report (here) who articulates the cunundrum: Why is the imposition of a Christian's beliefs represhensible, but a secularist's beliefs can be applied at will without a peep of outrage? Excerpt:
The "don't impose" people make little effort to be consistent, deploring, for example, Roman Catholics who act on their church's beliefs on abortion and stem cells but not those who follow the pope's insistence that the rich nations share their wealth with poor nations or his opposition to the death penalty and the invasion of Iraq. If the "don't impose" people wish to mount a serious argument, they will have to attack "imposers" on both sides of the issues they discuss--not just their opponents. They will also have to explain why arguments that come from religious beliefs are less worthy than similar arguments that come from secular principles or simply from hunches or personal feelings. Nat Hentoff, a passionate opponent of abortion, isn't accused of imposing his opinions, because he is an atheist. The same arguments and activity by a Christian activist would most likely be seen as a violation of some sort.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reader Gery Steighner submitted an excellent essay on the subject (here), which summarizes well, by pointing out that we're expected to understand them, no reciprocation is needed: Yet the secular elites who profess faith in tolerance won't do the work to achieve a compassionate understanding of moral traditionalists who have deep faith in the law of God as they see it. Thus is explained, in part, the left's angry befuddlement at the results of this election.
In the same Boston Globe "Idea" piece Rick Perlstein is quoted from above, Elaine Kamarck writes, "The fact that Clinton never paid a price within his party for his own mistakes continues to give many Americans the impression that we are a party that is as out of the mainstream on traditional moral questions as the Hollywood celebrities who endorse us. The first step to reclaiming the moral mantle is to stop adoring Bill Clinton the rock star and go back to some of the bedrock, forward-looking middle-class policies that made Clinton's presidency successful in spite of his behavior." How true. One of my incredible daughters was a presidential scholar in junior high. When she saw the certificate was signed by Clinton, she tossed it aside and said, "I don't want this!" Now 18, she voted proudly for Bush.
Ending with a threat:
This from the Nov. 7 New York Times:
Yet gay rights' advocates will need to grapple with the surge in voting by evangelical Christians and those who ranked ''moral values'' first among their concerns. ''When the right wing attacks us it hurts, but it can help,'' Ms. Bonauto said. ''This is going to be an enormous unifying force for us. They had a good day, so to speak. But not as good a day as they think they had.''
posted by Laer at 9:06 PM
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