"Bring back traditional moral values"

[YoungDemCA]

What does that even mean?

Do the people who typically espouse this line believe that America has lost traditional values like caring for your neighbors and family, compassion, honesty, and generosity?

Or are they using the language of "traditional moral values" to promote dogmatism, prejudice, bigotry, selfishness, and greed?

Maybe it's time for liberals and progressives to reclaim the language of moral values from the Right. I for one, don't think that they have a monopoly on moral values-but they sure are embodiments of moral hypocrisy.

[JaneyVee]

1. That's codeword for "please don't drag me kicking & screaming into the 21st century!"

[elleng]

2. WE'VE got them; THEY'VE lost them,

and they lie about them.
Simple as that.

[Marrah_G]

3. Its just bigoted bullshit

it's code for anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-women, anti- minority, etc etc

[Tx4obama]

4. Every time the Republicans bring up 'The Constitution and the Founding Fathers' ...

... slavery and the fact that women did not have the right to vote - pops into my mind.

Every time!

[Ken Burch]

5. I've always thought the best response to the "traditional moral values" thing

was this rewrite of a well-known hymn:

Give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It's good enough for me.

We will pray with Aphrodite,
We will pray with Aphrodite,
She wears that see-through nightie,
And it's good enough for me.

We will pray with Zarathustra,
We'll pray just like we use ta,
I'm a Zarathustra booster,
And it's good enough for me.

We will pray with those Egyptians,
Build pyramids to put our crypts in,
Cover subways with inscriptions,
And it's good enough for me.

We will pray with those old druids,
They drink fermented fluids,
Waltzing naked though the woo-ids,
And it's good enough for me.

We do dances to bring water,
Prepare animals for slaughter,
Sacrifice our sons and daughters,
And it's good enough for me.

I'll arise at early morning,
When my Lord gives me the warning,
That the solar age is dawning,
And it's good enough for me

[handmade34]

6. red states and moral values...

could go on and on...

However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.

"Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by," Edelman says..."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16680-porn-in-the-usa-conservatives-are-biggest-consumers.html

A Census Bureau analysis published yesterday has picked up some attention on among a certain (read: liberal) segment of the Internet. According to the latest figures from 2009, married couples in conservative states tend to divorce at higher rates than more liberal ones

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/08/red-states-lead-nation-divorce/41797/

A Smart Politics analysis of the recently released 2008 Uniform Crime Reports finds that red states across the nation have both higher violent and property crime rates than blue states, across several measures of partisanship

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2009/09/red_states_have_higher_crime_r.php

The blue states have an enormous tax base and pay disproportionately high taxes into the government compared to the money they receive from the government. The red states pay very little in taxes and receive disproportionately high returns from the government

http://www.oregonherald.com/n/radicalruss/20041212_red-state-moral-values.html

[Ken Burch]

7. Oh, they mean things like this(possible traumatic trigger images warning):

Last edited Fri Aug 10, 2012, 01:19 AM - Edit history (1)

[lastlib]

8. I just ask....

...whose tradition, whose morals, whose values?? We need them to decipher their codewords so some other than the dogs can understand their whistle. Then, when we have established a common acceptable frame of reference, and only then, can we talk about what to bring back.

[MFrohike]

9. Yes, let's

Let's start with greed and hypocrisy and we'll get to sex when those two aren't an issue anymore.

[Vogon_Glory]

10. Traditional Moral Values Right-Wing Dog-Whistle Concerning Sexual Mores

"Traditional moral values" is a right-wing code-phrase for what was once seen as an idealized late 19th-century stereotype for heterosexual patriarchy. Men would be the bread-winners, women would stay home and out of the workforce, children would remain sexually chaste until marriage, and homosexuality would be "the love that does not speak its name." It has nothing to do with honor and decency in the work place or concern or compassion for the poor and wretched.

The ivory-tower ideologues' vision of "traditional morality" didn't work as well as they thought it did back in the day (And as I grow older, I realize that most of the clowns expounding on "traditional moral values" WEREN'T EVEN ALIVE when these values were supposedly being practiced). Gays and lesbians were living underground and either living a lie or confined to furtive flings. Young girls got pregnant and were "sent away" to maternity homes. Anyone who enjoys old movies can see that a lot of the old advertising and what Hollywood produced back in the 1950's was very sexualized, even if the Hayes Code mandated separate beds and the public didn't get to see naked body bits and copulation. The teen pregnancy rates for the 1940's and the 1950's (And it's increasingly apparent that the 1950's were an anomalous period of widespread prosperity compared to what's going on now) were much HIGHER than they are now. VD was also present, although I have to admit that the rates were sometimes lower than at present.

The ideologues' vision of "traditional moral values" wouldn't work so well these days; unfortunately, most of their targeted audience hasn't thought things through. Most American families have to have BOTH parents working to sustain the lifestyles that ONE parent could provide back in the 1950's, and a lot of the spending in the 1990's and 2000's were financed on debt. The internet blew away the preachers' and the anti-sex league's campaign against seeing naked bits and copulation. People know about birth control these days, although access to birth control, like access to abortion and access to gynecological care, is under threat.

More to the point, people could AFFORD to get married a LOT earlier 40-60 years ago than they can now. Young couples are staggering under HUGE loads of debt their parents didn't carry, and would have to wait until their late 20's or early 30's to have the capital to start married households. The rose-tinted glasses-wearing right-wing morality crowd not only doesn't see what their fellow right-wingers have created, but they expect people to wait until they're almost 30 before they can have sex.

I could go on, but I think I've made a few points.

[SmileyRose]

11. "We need more lynchings and wife beatings."

That's what they really mean.

[JoePhilly]

12. It means they want to go back to the 50s ... the 1850s.