But my point was that the government already legislates morality. Simply in declaring things like robbery and insider trading illegal, for example, it's legislating morality.
People can have the same values and different priorities, right? So who is to say whose priorities are higher? You?
Why not me? Aren't you telling me right now that you think your priorities are higher?
I am sure there is someone who is just as religious as you, within your sect of Christianity (as I presume you are Christian), who would vehemently disagree with you over what are priorities. Which of you should legislate?
The one who prevails at the ballot box.
We must legislate universal goods, like freedom, tolerance (though not love), rights and duties. Not individual codes of morality.
Who says we must legislate these things? And on what basis do you call them "universal goods"? Certainly some Muslim societies don't value tolerance the way we do, so how have you come to the conclusion that tolerence is good? Isn't that your morality? (Are we perhaps operating on different definitions of the word "morality"?)
I should make it clear that I don't want a theocracy in this country. I think the Constitution is a brilliant, miraculous document. I'm just saying that everyone brings their morality to bear--in the way they vote, in the way they live their lives. You do when you say we must legislate tolerance. I did when I voted for Bush because I think he's a moral man and Kerry isn't. Socialists and other lefties did when they elected Bernie Sanders to Congress in Vermont.
All I'm saying is don't ask Christians to leave their beliefs at home when they enter the political arena. No one else does.
I would have voted for Bush too, if I was American. Here in Canada, I vote for the Conservative party. My priorities are not higher than yours. In fact, as I have told (i think) bobhoskins, our priorities are very likely very similar. I hold strong Judeo-Christian values. The difference is, I don't believe it should be forced on others. Tolerance, as I said, is not about loving anyone or loving their beliefs or their practices. It is about living with them.
Tyranny of the majority, as the ballotbox or elsewhere, is still tyranny. And will always be. No ifs or buts. Thats how it is.
The government does not have to legislate morality. And that is, in fact, why its run into such trouble in the last few decades. The culture war was brought to Washington. Unsurprisingly, we conservatives are losing it (and yes I AM a social conservative). If your town, for example, were built around Judeo-Christian premises, that would be another matter. In that case, I would expect and encourage you to legislate Judeo-Christian morality.
I am operating on WESTERN universal values, which granted owe a lot to Judeo-Christian values. If Muslims want to come here, they have to live by our laws, or face the consequences, or get kicked out. I think we are operating on the same defintion of morality, but with a distinction between morality and values. And our differences are expressed in the quandary that I believe we should not legislate morality on a federal level, or even state (for most values), while you seem to be on the other side.
THe problem is, once you start legislating morality, then you inevitably have a tyranny. You turn into a theocracy, however good your intentions were.
Basic tolerance (and NOTHING more), is not a moral value. It is a pragmatic value. You can criticize homosexuals all you want under tolerance. You just don't go around killing them, or imprisoning them or stopping them from having sex in the privacy of their own house. That's it. I don't mean anything else when I say tolerance.
Because anything more, and you fall down the slipper slope on one side to the socialists/communists. And anything more on the other side, you fall down the slipper slope to tyranny of some sort.
I think we all agree on general values here, with some disagreement on specifics. It is on what we should do that libertarian conservatives (classic liberals basically ala Locke etc.) and authoritarian conservatives normally disagree on.
For me, freedom means letting me choose how to live my life within reason, and letting you choose how to live yours. Our forefathers didn't fight and die to form a land of Judeo-Christian morality. They fought for a land where they could be free. Almost all of them (with the exception of a few Jews) were Christians, and decent upstanding men at that, but they came fleeing religious persecutation and dedicated themselves to building and fighting for a land where men could be free to worship and act as they pleased (again, within reason), not a utopia of their religious beliefs.