This should offend just about everybody here :)
Morality and Politics
An extract from an article in the LP News, February 2003, by Bill Winter:
If conservatives control the levers of power, we face censorship, new laws against gays and lesbians, an escalation of the War on Drugs, and mandatory prayer in schools - all in the name of "Christian" morality. Conservatives want to use government to make sure you're not bad.
If liberals gain power, we face mandatory racial sensitivity training, greater redistribution of wealth, more anti-hate crime laws (read: "thought crimes"), and more affirmative action programs - all in the name of "compassionate" morality. Liberals want to use government to make you good.
The moral agendas of liberals and conservatives are quite different. But they have one thing in common: They both know what's best for you.
In his 1996 book, Moral Politics, George Lakoff wrote that the conservatives hold a "Strict Father Model" view of government. Liberals, he writes, have a "Nurturant Parent Model".
But in both models, government is the parent. You are the child.
That could be why Rev. Robert A. Sirico of the Action Institute wrote that Americans make a serious mistake when they "suppose that virtue is something that can be enacted by politicians and implemented by bureaucrats".
Sirico is right. When government dictates morality, your morality is at the mercy of whatever amoral gang is in power that day...
... Laws can't make people moral.
"In the arena of peaceful behavior, morality and compassion mean nothing when they are the product of force," argued Jacob G. Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation. "They are meaningful only in the context of voluntary, willing choices of individuals"... |
