Dangling Conversations
Posing the moral questions facing the next American president.
Between "gotcha" questions and the ubiquitous gaffe-watch, there hasn't been much serious moral debate in the endgame of this presidential campaign. In fact, there hasn't been a serious exploration of the moral kernel of so many of today's contested issues since the forum at Saddleback Church in August. In the hope that it's not too late to raise the level of a public discussion too often conducted in sound bites, here are some urgent moral questions to be pressed on those who would lead us.
ON MATTERS OF FOREIGN POLICY
1. This past April, Pope Benedict XVI spoke at the United Nations of the "duty to protect" and described it as the litmus test of political legitimacy. Does the United States have a moral obligation to act, alone or in concert with others, when governments manifestly fail in their "duty to protect"?
2. Religiously-shaped moral conviction plays multiple, dynamic roles in 21st century world politics. Very few people at the Department of State, the Department of Defense, or the Central Intelligence Agency understand this. What will you do to change that?
3. Forget the chatter about "preemption." The correct term, within the classic just war tradition, is "the morally justified first-use of armed force." Do you think the first use of armed force is ever morally justifiable? Is so, when? If not, why not?
4. What role does distorted religious conviction play in creating the dangers we face from terrorists? How can American public diplomacy address those convictions?
5. What is the responsibility of the United States to help ensure that the new Iraq is safe for all its religious communities? What is the moral responsibility of the U.S. government toward displaced Iraqi Christians, many of whom have fled the country?
ON MATTERS OF DOMESTIC POLICY
6. Do you consider homosexuality the equivalent of race for purposes of U.S. civil rights law?
7. Is any public defense of classic biblical sexual morality a de facto act of intolerance and discrimination against gays?
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Member Comments
Posted By: DHFabian @ 11/28/2008 3:15:00 PM
Comment: Where is the discussion about US poverty? The talk stops at "middle class". Our economic disparities are not the result of people being "lazy". Poverty is hard, distressing, painful, sometimes fatal -- not a "lifestyle choice"! Not everyone is employable, and there aren't jobs for all who can work. We provide billions of dollars of aid for our rich, in the form of "tax relief", etc., but only spit on ":the least of these" in America.
Posted By: MegaDeath @ 10/17/2008 11:01:17 AM
Comment: 2008 is only the begining of the "Prophecy of Doom". Nostradamus (1503-1566) was an French apothecary who was 96% accurate in his ability to fore see and predict the future(500 Years ahead of his time). In his last quatrain he predicted that between 2008-2012 would be the start of the end of civilization. He fore seen the down fall of Western countries through various events leading up to World War lll (A Nuclear War) by 2012, which will start in the Middle East. With the problems we are having in the current economic mess, this could be the first sign.
Posted By: Jim Johnson @ 10/16/2008 1:01:30 PM
Comment: Obama's view of the future of America - Socialism which is the next step to Communism!!
Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living. In other words, socialism is a form of legalized theft.
The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another's wealth but also the desire to see another's wealth lowered to the level of one's own. Socialism's teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: "Common good comes before private good." Fascism, said
Mussolini, is "a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests??realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies."
Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.
Despite the intellectuals' psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social system.
Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.
Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.
It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one's birth or station in life.
Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient. [What about the role of luckbeing in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time? R. R. Pope}
Capitalism is the only social system that rewards virtue and punishes vice. This applies to both the business executive and the carpenter, the lawyer and the factory worker.