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Morality and Politics: Do You Try to Make Moral Choices?
I am cringing while I write this post, in a way I never have. I don’t trust that we can have a civil conversation about this topic; that I may open old wounds and create havoc. I’ve asked myself over and over whether I can trust all of you to be decent, moral human beings. I think I can trust you; I hope I can because this question has been nagging at me for months, and I need your help to resolve it. Let’s make this an opportunity to do it together, in our search for truth and understanding. That means putting aside the need to win or be right; I don’t think either of those efforts will be successful.
All that said, I have been struggling with my own morality related to politics.
First, if you know anything about me at all, you know I strive to be a moral person. I’m not bragging about it; I feel compelled to do it. Most of the time, I think I do that with ease; I have clarity about my values in relation to how I act, what I do and how I treat others.
I bring up these questions as I’m nearly finished with a book by Charles Lane, called Freedom’s Detective , a book about Hiram Whitley, the man who began the Secret Service. That organization was originally started to find counterfeiters but eventually was key in rounding up the Ku Klux Klan during and following Reconstruction. It was a fascinating story, but I was especially struck by Whitley himself. He was an excellent manager and strategist, but he was also a liar, thief, finagler, and also showed many other disreputable attributes. Eventually, he was fired, but he did great things under the Grant administration. He was both celebrated and condemned in his time. He made me think of Donald Trump.
That led me to the issue that has been bothering me the last couple of years, particularly after 2016: how to frame and comprehend and hold true to my own morality, particularly in relation to politics. Part of my problem is that I hold people I connect with or feel connected to, to a high moral standard. If you want to be my friend, you have to be a decent person. Figuring out what a “decent person” is might be a key part of this discussion.
I also believe that most of you who participate on Ricochet are moral and principled people. I can’t think of a better place to initiate this discussion. So here it is:
In terms of morality, Donald Trump is a mixed bag. In fact, I guess I could say that most of us are. Some of you believe that G-d will be the final Judge of whether we pass muster on the morality measure.
I wonder how you weigh the question of who to support in any area of life when the person is far from the perfect person. Regarding Trump–
-I realize that many of you might have decided that you would vote for just about anyone who could “clean out the swamp,” no matter their moral attributes or limitations.
-You may have decided that morality was not an issue, that the country was in such dire straits that the questions about the morality of the person you voted for were irrelevant.
-Since we are all a mixed bag, you may have decided that Trump was sufficiently moral, given how he treated his family, how he cared for our veterans, how he loved America and wanted to help us, and the other moral traits he showed.
Please do not use this post as an opportunity to defend Trump or yourself, or to bash others who do not. And for those of you who don’t like Trump, this post may not be for you.
This post is primarily about the moral choices you make regarding politics and politicians, not necessarily attacking or defending particular officeholders or candidates. As a point of information, I didn’t vote for Trump or support him before the election (and I say that without judgment of those who did); I made judgments about his character and reputation. But the simple fact that he is president means for me that I will support him when he does good things, and criticize him when I think he doesn’t. On balance, I think he has done a good job.
To me, supporting him is a moral choice, because the country elected him.
In that vein, what did you think of Hiram Whitley mentioned earlier? What role, if any, does your morality play in your political choices? Does morality play a different role in the policies you support versus the persons for whom you vote?
Published in Culture
I’m thinking the “dead hollow husk” was the Republican party getting beaten in a war Democrats and their allies had been unilaterally waging for the last 50 years.
Frankly, I’m not sure what is the nature of conservatism that you think died?
Amen, brother @skipsul!
yah… I smell a continuing resolution in their future. It is funny how the Freedom Caucus is all ready to fight for fiscal discipline now that they are in the minority party again and no one has to listen to them?
But isn’t math just beautiful?
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/07/bond-king-jeffrey-gundlach-says-the-national-debt-is-totally-out-of-control.html
***Why is this happening?***
Yes, because the truth bares repeating, and if it castigates then so be it. Those who voted for Trump keep repeating the same old lines about binary choices pedaling their disguised moral relativism. I thought that binary choice theory was bunk then I think it is bunk now and I will keep calling it bunk twenty years from now. I refuse to let you lot rest comfortably in your own moral illusions. In the end you’ll see I’m right.
Nope.
I understand what you’re saying, in fact my first choice was Scott Walker and after that begrudgingly Cruz, but when Trump got the nomination there was no other option. We’re not talking about a Hitler, Stalin, or Chavez here. This is not some tyrant come to eliminate all opposition to his power, this is a somewhat crude man with brilliant instincts and, as far as I can tell, a love for the country.
Sure, there was reasonable concern at first, his main drawback was being a political unknown and novice … and he sure made lots of rookie errors, but he’s settling in and appears concerned about his legacy: leaving the country better off than how he found it.
There are people who viscerally hate Trump for a variety of reasons … none of which are fundamentally rational.
It should also bear noting that a number of us have said that the issue of whether to vote for him or not was in no way a moral decision in the first place, which makes it rather difficult to argue that voting for or against him was a moral issue or a case of moral relativism at all.
So let me ask you: what would advise people do, moving forward? I ask because it seems that by doing little beyond casting moral blame on all, I’m seeing little beyond despair and nihilism. So what would you have people do? What do you advocate for? And, given the framework of the post, and its inherent question of whether voting is a question of morality, what moral standard would you be claiming to uphold?
Absent an argument, or even better a plan for something better, it’s just heckling at this point.
My concerns we’re just like that. He lacks civic knowledge. He’s never spoken under pressure as a civic executive. (I even think legislators are just gas bags in this sense.) He lacked foreign-policy experience and knowledge, but so far no big deal. He’s an inflationist, but so is 99% of the country.
Everything is going well. He beats the crap out of the media.
They should have helped him on the ACA more. He just wasn’t ready for that. They should’ve just slowed down.
The only people that complain that make any sense to me are the ones with thoughtful libertarian sensibilities.
@valiuth, we get it. We’re adults. Maybe its time for you to move on.
I will be offline for the Sabbath in about an hour. If @valiuth persists, I’d suggest you carry on the conversation without him.
While I agree formal religious organization is crucial in propagating positive doctrine generationally, I think it should always be qualified when making a point in discussion. I consider every person has spiritual convictions as a result of their background. The outward expression of those convictions and the community with which that is associated is the religion. Pop culture reveres itself as it is a form of secular humanism. Many adherents of that religion worship their icons via multiple screens – an example of religion which is not beneficial.
Moths to a flame, or if you will, the casualties of The Great Big Ugly Man who came up and tied his horse…
No, the alleged wonks and grown ups in the House Republican crew had 6 freakin’ years to hold every hearing and put before the Senate, the Democrat president, and the American voter a 100% complete answer. It should have been voted out of the House in 2015. McConnell should have run it through on a 51 vote rule. The American voter should have had an informed choice in the 2016 election and it should have been on President Trump’s desk on 21 Jan 2017. That would have been real congressional leadership, as the Framers intended.
Paul “Lying” Ryan was a crooked grifter. He never intended real repeal or anything other than Obamacare with Republican hands on the strings.
I’m not an expert on this. I think the problem is you had RINOs and in purple districts that had to be strategic about the Cloward and Piven nature of the ACA.
Collins and Murkowski should have been more forthright about the fact that they were lying about repeal because of issues in their state. There were dozens more in the house.
There was never any strategic leadership and I don’t think Trump understood how bad the situation was.
Please anyone feel free to add or subtract from that.
Fair points. And…this base level insincerity by the Congressional GOP is how we got Trump. It turns out he is seized of the idea that a campaign promise make is a promise that must be kept. How quaint, how refreshing.
It’s outrageous. All these guys want to do is get past their next election and preserve any jobs they can get after they leave office.
They should have taken a year and done some education about how illogical our system is because of what happened during World War II and decisions after that. Then they should have just dealt with it forthrightly.
Yup. And sometimes it’s difficult to judge the morality of someone you think you know personally. This came home to me personally about a week ago, not about a politician, but about a priest.
This individual was someone who taught me theology in high school … (I’ve edited the rest of this background paragraph for the reasons mentioned below)
And then … after he death, he turns up on one of those lists the archdioceses have had to put out. So either he was falsely accused, and this comment of mine is off topic, or it’s a case where even knowing someone personally provides incomplete data.
(The accusation about the person initially described seemed so wrong to me that I had to dig deeper. It turns out that another accused priest has stated publicly that the Review Board never even contacted him about the accusation in his own case. Also, I was in communication with a friend of my former teacher, a highly respected figure in the Church, who also believes the accusation is probably false, and the review process flawed. Now I lean that way, too. However, one of my other high school theology teachers also appeared on a similar list, and reinforces the argument that knowing someone personally provides incomplete data.)
As for applying personal morality to candidates, it’s irrelevant to my political judgement. My own moral compass definitely does not correlate with many of you here on Ricochet on a couple of big fat political/moral issues, but I wager to say I vote with most of you most of the time. Politics is the art of the possible. Increasingly it’s also becoming one of the Media Arts.
Effective politicians who get things done sometimes have a long history of personal moral compromise, and saintly shnooks can be utter disasters electorally and politically. (He said, pounding fist into Mitt.)
What the hell do you think happened to Ryan? He sure started off on the right foot.
The truth of medicine and related health-repairing/longevity-increasing stuff; that innovation is expensive even without the myriad ways government makes it more expensive, that we have invented more of it than they average human could possibly afford to access, and that nearly everyone would prefer to live comfortable and indefinitely, is something almost no one wants to hear, and, should it be heard, would go to considerable effort to un-hear it…and elect anyone other than the person who suggested that they couldn’t have eternal life and constant euphoria.
And now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go see about deleting this comment so I don’t have to think about it.
They got to him somehow.
About 10 years ago I asked an econ prof who supported ACA as to the nature of the political philosophy underlying a law to make one group of people responsible for the health care of another. He demurred until finally yielding “the social contract” … he’s a closet Marxist.
Good job, @keithrice. When we spot them, it’s wise to essentially call them out.
The problem is we have government and business subsidizing health insurance right now in a very messed up way and Medicare is massively underfunded.
No they, he just got House-broken.
Mitt Romney
I don’t see how the choice to vote for him or anyone for that matter is not a moral decision. Especially when the arguments marsheld in his favor were that to not vote for him would be to doom the country. How is that not a moral decision then? A vote for Trump was a moral decision to endorse him all of him the good the bad, the ugly. And he and his most ardent supporters have taken that endorsement as justification and amelioration of his defects and deficiencies. His immorality has been turned into a virtue and all in the Republican party are asked to endorse it as such for political expediency and advantage. I think this is immoral, an abnegation of truth. SO, you ask what I would want going forward what I advocate for. Simple, a free market constiutionalist party devoid of Trump and Trumpism, that can freely criticize his bad character and bad policies while also choosing to, when appropriate, work with him and Republicans for the passage of legislation or policy. Simple as that. I can deal with Trump or Democrats from a practical political perspective of haggling over some policy, but I don’t want to be part of any political party or movement that has to acknowledge Trump as “my leader” that I have to be loyal, and supportive of.
I guess I was too subtle or polite, @valiuth. I’m asking you not to comment on this OP again. I’m notifying @skipsul accordingly.
On that I have to disagree. By that standard there is no human being ever born (save one) who could possibly meet the standard you set of a vote being an endorsing of “all of him, the good, the bad, the ugly”. Every single president we have had has been some mix of all of those in different proportions. Sometimes we know more of what the mix is, sometimes less, but it’s always a mix, and I would never assent to viewing my vote as an endorsement of their entire person.
Well, then your grievance should be with them, not with the rest of us who cautiously watch.