'Red' reasoning on morality is confusing

My conservative readers and friends tell me that my options now are to get on board the George W. Bush bandwagon, consign myself to ideological irrelevancy, or hold my tongue for four years while I contemplate how to ''repackage'' my politics to be more acceptable to the American people.

Alas, none of those options appeals to me. My ideology is shaped by my analyses of issues, not by parties or candidates -- I opposed Bush because I opposed the invasion of Iraq, not the other way around. So it takes more than the outcome of an election to make me doubt my stances on issues; all Nov. 2 showed me is that more people disagreed with me than agreed with me, not that they are right and I am wrong.

But that's not insignificant. As a liberal ''blue state'' guy (living in a blue area of a red state), the election showed there is an America I truly don't comprehend. It's clear ''red state'' folks see things I don't see.

So the outcome of the election presents me with the opportunity, if not the obligation, to take a much closer look at the rhetoric of Red America. Maybe I'm missing something. Or maybe they are. I've got four long years to sort it out.

I'm most puzzled by this business about morality, which many analysts say tipped the election to Bush. I've always figured morality had to do with the individual choices each of us has a right to make. Other people might not like your choices, but this is a free country, isn't it?

And in a free country, not only do I have the right to make my own moral decisions, others have the freedom to try to persuade me to make different choices. In fact, I've always regarded persuasion as the moralist's only proper tool; I'm not really making a moral choice -- and you're not really promoting morality -- if you're forcing me to do what you believe I should do.

Red-state moralists, for example, apparently believe adults shouldn't be able to choose their desired spouses. Most approve of using tax money to promote Christianity in schools, courtrooms and other government facilities.

And most red-staters apparently believe government should be able to force a woman to remain pregnant whether she wants to or not.

I'd think red-staters would have confidence in their faith and the strength of their convictions to persuade people to make the right moral choices -- and do everything in their power to keep government emphatically secular and out of the morality business. Yet it seems to be just the opposite.

Now I understand pro-lifers believe life begins at fertilization, and that a fetus has full rights as a human being. But a fetus can only survive while attached to another human being -- who most certainly has rights. Whose rights should take precedence?

I see this as a moral issue which can only be guided by the conscience of the individual involved. The pro-choice stance doesn't compel any woman to have an abortion -- but the pro-life stance compels all pregnant women to carry to term. This position spares red-state moralists the need to persuade women to decide as they would -- why waste time encouraging a woman to do the right thing when you can just use the government to force her to do it?

Some pro-lifers argue that murder is immoral, too, and government most certainly punishes those who commit it. I agree murder is immoral, but that's not why it's a criminal act. It's outlawed because we have collectively agreed that a proper society shouldn't allow harm to befall someone at the hands of another -- the same reason robbery, fraud and rape are illegal. We don't allow people to choose to impinge upon the rights of another -- so ''moral choice'' isn't the issue.

So isn't abortion murder? Does a mother commit "murder" by detaching this thing from her body? Abortion is the ultimate moral issue: Either the fetus or the mother must be denied rights in the end.

Which is precisely why I don't feel government is wise enough to decide. We complain about government levying taxes, restricting hunting and fishing rights, making crazy zoning decisions -- and instigating foolish wars. But we're supposed to trust politicians to resolve the exquisitely moral issue of abortion?

Not me -- I'd rather trust women to decide for themselves, with the help of their doctors. But Nov. 2 said Red America thinks otherwise. I'll be interested to learn why.

Let's start with abortion. The normal argument is mother's rights vs. rights of the unborn.

Any rights based on killing someone so that someone else is not inconvenienced is already an immoral choice.

The morality that says nine months of a woman's life is = to killing a baby that she doesn't have to raise herself says that the value of a life is not very valuable.

Then the morality that says life is not very valable, that a woman can squelch it anytime she wants before it is outside of her body looks at someone who is an oppressor who is killing huge numbers of people and tossing them into unmarked graves and is supporting the murder of people via terrorist techiniques all over the middle east, and says its wrong to do anything to help those people, reiterates that life is only valuable if it's convenient, not because it is a special thing.

Life is only valuable when it's convenient allows for all sorts of hideous outcomes. The Killing Fields in Cambodia are only bad because it was no longer convenient to ignore them, not because of the inherent evil done in the name of ideology. That murder of innocents in terrorism is only bad if it inconveniences your way of life. That letting babies and mothers starve so others can get rich by skimming large amounts of money off a program to aid them is perfectly a moral thing to do, because their death and suffering is just an inconvenience.

The consistancy of view here means: Life is cheap. It only becomes valuable if I want it to be valuable. Anyone else can go to perdition.

This is not a very positive view to base a morality on.

The other view, the Pro-life view, is life is sacred, a gift of God, and it should be cherished. Babies shouldn't be punished because of the mistakes of the mother, and if the mother doesn't want to raise it, why there are many, many people who will be happy to relieve her from that burden.

It means the poor need to be cared for, because they are children of God, and it means that looking down on them, creating programs that will destroy their families and keep them poor and a source of discontent and easy voters is an evil thing to do. It means helping those we can to learn how to make the best of life, by not turning our backs on them, but helping them to learn how to care for themeselves, and being there to help them if they fail. This is not necessarily the government's job only - it's the job of all people.

It means that the ill deserve respect and care, not being put down when it is inconvenient to care for them, even if they have damage like brain injury or birth defects.

It has other implications, many of them based not on what the government should do, but what we, as human beings who understand that life is sacred should do.

And yes, it really starts with the rights of the unborn.

My primary focus here is on economic policy, tax, and related issues. Many of your observations are responsive to the fundamental political position that this guy is defending and which was rejected by the electorate. I want to deal with it from a little different perspective.

My own personal position is this: I am a fundamental Bible Christian; I think Bush II has been a lousy President, perhaps one of the worst of the last hundred years. So why do I think the appropriate choice in the last Presidential election was to vote for Bush, not Kerry?

In dealing with the Mohammadan attacks on the United States, Bush has done a really poor job in defining the war--we are not at war with terror--terror is an instrument of war, like an army attack, not the enemy; nor are we at war with American citizens to whom the Patriot Acts are addressed. The enemy is a group of individuals from a number of countries whose religious belief system calls for the elimination of Christians, Jews, and others who cannot be voluntarily converted to their system--we call them Mohammadans.

The attack on Iraq and removal of Saddam Hussein may well be justified as an act in this war. However the attack was poorly planned and executed; and there was no realistic plan for dealing with the defeated enemy. Iraq is not now and has never been a real country--it is lines on a Map drawn by the British after the War and includes at least three, probably five, distinct interest sectors who have historically been at war with each other for over a thousand years. The only realistic choices are a dictator like Saddam for the entire country; or division of the country into five separate segments. We have wasted billions of American dollars and hundreds of American lives pursuing a poorly defined policy.

We need to secure borders and police Visas. If we had done that one thing, 9/11 would not have happend--the Bush Administration opposes doing it today.

The Administration economic policy is a disaster. Yes taxes are too high and discourage investment and the tax burden should be reduced. But spending should also be curtailed because the deficit is long-term harmful and the Administration is absolutly off the court on this issue.

Monetary policy is also a disaster--a sound economy requires a stable monetary system and a combination of fed policy and fiscal deficits is eliminating any change for a sustained economic recovery.

I would like to address his points about abortion point to point but do not want to take the space to do so directly. Like the pro-abortionists, he focuses on the balance of rights--but he mistates the balance: It is not the mothers rights against those of the child; it is temporary curtailment of the mother's body versus the childs life--should be an easy choice.

Particularly under circumstances where the real choice in the first instance was made by the mother--the act that created the life was voluntary. The law ought to be clear that abortion is murder and possible mothers ought to recognize that they are legally accountable for the choice and the act in the first instance.

Now I think God judges the nations. So national moral conduct is important. Our legal system, Constitution, and Declaration, were based on the Judeo Christian ethic which is why God prospered our nation over the years. Having turned our face from God as a society, we should expect him to judge our nation harshly.

However as our institutions have developed into a secular legal system, these issues are also resolved clearly by our fundamental legal rules. Our Constitution prohibits the taking of life without due process. The unborn child is a life in being as a scientific proposition at or very shortly after the moment of conception and is entitled to legal protection.

The best that can be said for Roe v. Wade is that the decision was based on science of the time that is now outdated.

Politically, that may not resolve the issue of the day. It is open to the abortion camp to proceed to attempt to amend the Constitution to provide that life is not protected from termination by the mother prior to birth; or during the first three months after conception; or some other arbitrary cut off. I would oppose such an amendment on moral grounds but the political debate would resolve the political issue conclusively.

I don't see abortion as being in any way a medical issue. Doctors resolve the threat to one life from another (Siamise twins etc.) all the time. When an unborn child presents a risk to the mother or to itself or to another unborn sybling, doctors address and resolve these matters in a ethical way on a regular basis. Even on an immoral secular basis, partial birth abortion is simply an indefensible barbaric practice.

Homosexuals? On a secular basis, there is no doubt that male homosexual activity presents a health risk to society. The reason male homosexuals have shorter life spans is because their life style is unhealthy. On moral grounds ("a man shall not lie with a man as with a woman"), it ought to be prohibited. On secular grounds, it should be discouraged, not encouraged.

Women homosexuals are less clear on both grounds. My own view is that they are engaging in unrighteous and thus immoral conduct. On secular grounds, the threat is less clear.

So how does this resolve the election? John Kerry was unfit to be President of the United States on any objective basis: He is a liar; a cheat; an ineffective Senator; doing a poor job representing the constituents he has represented; at odds with the fundamental Judeao Christian ethical principals which are the foundation of our legal system; promising to appoint only Judges who have a fixed view of legal principals that are not always supported by the literal Constitution and laws of our country. The most extreme, out of the mainstream liberal in Congress, John Kerry was worse.

At a time when the Democratic party could have advanced the cause of America by presenting a candidate who was in the mainstream of American thought (names that come to mind are Sam Nunn, Joe Lieberman, Zell Miller, etc.), it nominated Kerry. Kerry was worse: On issues where George II is wrong (post war Iraq; the borders; the war on "terror"; the economy), Kerry's position is the same. On fundamental Judeao Christian ethical principles and the rule of our foundational legal documents, he was far worse. So the Dem's have come up short again.

"Some pro-lifers argue that murder is immoral, too, and government most certainly punishes those who commit it. I agree murder is immoral, but that's not why it's a criminal act. It's outlawed because we have collectively agreed that a proper society shouldn't allow harm to befall someone at the hands of another -- the same reason robbery, fraud and rape are illegal. We don't allow people to choose to impinge upon the rights of another -- so ''moral choice'' isn't the issue."

OK, right off the bat he starts out with a false premise. Murder, robbery, rape, are not wrong because we have collectively agreed that a proper society shouldn't allow (them).

That implies that their wrongness or rightness is determined by what a majority of people decide what is fitting for a 'proper society', when in fact they are opposed to natural law and are intrinsically wrong no matter what the majority may determine.

For instance, if there were 7 people on a deserted island, and 6 of them decided that they would beat and torture the 7th to death, would that make it right because they had collectively decided it was right? Of course not. How do we know this unless there is some universal, objective morality? Which assumes that there is an authority over and above what the majority of people within any society determine.

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