Which Moral Issues?
Mention morals, or values, and you might have visions of some wild-eyed preacher foaming at the mouth over abortion and gay marriage.
But a new survey shatters these stereotypes, as well as revealing Karl Rove-Goebbels’ brilliance at pushing conservative “moral” issues to the center of the stage while taking “unfavorable” issues off the table.
The survey asked people to rate thirteen issues as “very important,” “somewhat important” or “not important.” The three issues named most important were child abuse (89%), spousal abuse (77%) and hunger (71%).
At the bottom of the list were same-sex marriage (38%), homosexuality (31%) and gambling (18%).
My post of February 9th, Green Christians reported that 52% of Evangelical Christians support strict environmental regulations.
It’s becoming more and more clear that no political party or philosophy has a monopoly on morals or values. It further highlights Rove-Goebbels’ shrewdness at defining the 2004 election in terms of gay marriage and abortion, while keeping all other moral issues off the radar.
The Democrats need to find some campaign managers who are capable of pushing the environment, corporate crime, and economic suffering to the center of the stage. Let’s hope there’s somebody out there who can do this.
posted by Tom Harper @ 1:18 AM
2 Comments:
None of those issues is take center stage because none of those issues is bad enough.
The environment is better than it was thirty years ago (the exception being CO2): airborne particulates and polutants, smog, acid rain, and water poluution are all down. Like wise, no one really cares.
Corporate crime is always a problem regardless of politicians (Enron and World Com happened on Clinton's watch), but so is government crime - the massive unfunded obligations of Medicare ebing passed on to future generations.
Economic suffering? That's a bullshit issue.
Americans are richer than theyhave ever been. (Or perhaps you'd like to trade your computer for a book, and take up a job in steel factory in 1950, toiling 3 years so that you can buy an Edsel and a TV)
Economic suffering is a bullshit issue? Tell that to someone who just got downsized or had his/her job outsourced. Millions of workers have played by the rules all their lives and then had the rug pulled out from under them (their job eliminated).
This is inevitable to some extent, but when multinational corporations are not stakeholders in their community, they are more likely to treat their employees like pawns on a chessboard. There's only so much the government can (or should) do, but it's still a moral issue if there ever was one.
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