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Edited on Sat Dec-04-04 12:47 PM by WCGreen
Alternative Press, the Cleveland Free TImes..
"Thank God he's the president. I love him because he has moral clarity..."
That quote, appearing in a recent addition of the Long Island Newspaper, Newsday, attributed to a woman attending an early summer New York City Bush Fundraiser, sums up nicely how adoring partisans view Mr. Bush. They see a man not afraid to use the word evil, a man who says what he means and means what he says. No lying, no hidden agendas just a straight-shooting Texan.
What a change, these folks say, from those Moral Relativists who, according to the web site moral-relativism.com, believe that "morality, or standards of right and wrong, are...a matter of individual choice." Of course those among us who believe a higher power is responsible for all that we are, find fault with this humanistic approach to morality. Call it situational morality, if you will, or call it the sixties anything goes let your hair down and inhale, if you can.
It seems we have a morality divide in this country between those deemed moral relativists, or secular humanists, and those calling themselves Christians, rooted, as Mr. Bush often claims, in the moral absolutes in the Testaments of the Bible, emphasis on the old rather than the new. Coincidentally, this demarcation splits between liberals and conservatives, democrats and republicans. By openly and publicly embracing an absolute vision of morality, republicans have been able to cast any and all dispersions at the Moral Relativists who, they claim, have taken over the Democratic Party.
From that absolute stance on morality, it's not hard to see the end result. We, meaning republicans, are good, they, meaning democrats, are evil. God is on our side and has given us a mission to purge this country of all the good book declares evil. Every political debate is suddenly between those who believe in god and those whom others claim do not
. But do these paragons of virtue and holders of righteous indignation practice what they preach, or is the idea of moral absoluteness just a debating point while political pragmatism sets the true agenda?
Question. If we had won the Vietnam War, would it have mattered if the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed under false pretext? Would it still have been rescinded?
Right now, large segments of the US population are in a state of absolute jingoistic jubilance. Righteous conservatives have won a stunning victory over a despicable and immoral foe. The US has dispatched a truly immoral regime. Now if there are, as Mr. Bush continuously reminds us, no shades of gray only easily defined blacks and whites, then it follows that justification for this military action taken to smite the enemy of god and man must be pure and clearly definable.
Unfortunately for Moral Absolutionists, the thesis constructed by this administration to justify war is shifting faster than the desert sands on which the battles were fought. Was it because the Iraqi regime was somehow involved with the WTC Attack? Was it because Saddam had stockpiled WMD only a drone flight away from the heart of America? Or was he this close to getting his hands on the "Bomb?"
Since only inconclusive evidence is being discovered to bolster massive WMD deployment and development and no evidence seems to exist for any collusion with Al Qeada, Mr. Bush is forced to reach for yet another justification. Now Saddam had to go because of the barbaric reign of terror waged against the Iraqi people.
In the color coded morality built by Mr. Bush, wouldn't this continual gray tinged search for whatever purpose finally politically justifies the decision to "go at it" undermine the strict moral reasoning for the invasion? Given this ambiguity, it seems as if Mr. Bush and his apologists are adopting a moral relativistic approach toward Iraq. In this case, Mr. Bush has subscribed to a pragmatic politics where ends are justified no matter what the means. If that is the case, then the whole Iraqi affairs appears to be on shaky moral ground, especially for absolutionist fans such as the Bush smitten New Yorker.
To those who view themselves as Moral Relativists, it gives no comfort to know Mr. Bush has built the justification for his actions on, what absolutionists would say, is a morally corrupt foundation. Likewise, it is painful to watch the self styled good vs. evil contingent of our nation's moral leadership express no concern about the pragmatic means taken to, in the end, solve a moral dilemma. One has to wonder if a Moral Relativist or worse, a democrat, had built a case for war on such shaky moral ground, would the jubilation now coming from Mr. Bush's ardent supporters be as loud? Or is it that anything goes as long as it strengthens their partisan political fortune?
One wonders what Jesus, Mr. Bush's favorite philosopher, would have to say about all of this?
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