Romney Supporter Gets Yelled At by Jerry Doyle

[Dennis1209]

Again, this isn't a state's rights vs federal gov discussion; morals and social issues are important and critical at all levels of government. It also isn't a discussion about religion. I don't care what religion a candidate is or isn't or if he believes in God at all...but do I care if he is a moral person and where he stands on moral/social issues and yes, I do believe that society, through government, has both an obligation and and a right to set moral and ethical boundaries and enforce them.

Hey Robert. I don't necessarily disagree with you and certainly don't want to argue but, I'm a little confused about your reasoning?

A moral person? Where does a moral person get his / her morals, the government, their parents, Roseanne Barr, Kathy Griffin, the Ten Commandments? And who is to say a person is moral, the goberment, next door neighbor, MSNBC, the Bible?

According to a certain religion, it's moral to stone your wife for family honor, kill Christians and Jews hiding behind a rock.

What do, say Communists base their moral values on?

What is our United States Constitution and law originally based on, other than some English laws and concepts?

Short answer: Religion... The God of the Bible. The author of morality.

[RobertNashville]

I don't care where they come from, only that he has them and that they agree with my own.

[Dennis1209]

I don't care where they come from, only that he has them and that they agree with my own.

Who can debate that?

[Guest Lester Weevils]

This isn't a state's rights discussion nor does it have anything to do with religiosity.

I don’t make my decisions about a candidate based only on his fiscal policy - what morals he holds to personally and has demonstrated in his life as well as what moral principles he brings to the office he is seeking is at last as important to me as any other policy/consideration. Society, through government, has both an obligation and and a right to set moral and ethical boundaries and enforce them...to not do so invites anarchy.

Thanks Robert. I don't much mind what morals a leader has as long as he doesn't break the law, and he doesn't enforce his own beliefs at gunpoint. Problem is, if a candidate spends too much of his time explaining how moral he is, and how moral everybody else ought to be-- Maybe he's just mouthing off and getting off topic from the valid business of the nation. However it is not a giant leap to conclude that a man or woman who spends inordinate amount of time talking morality, might be planning to force everyone else to live according to the candidate's morality once elected. Otherwise, why belabor the issue? I'll gladly vote for a non-meddler regardless of the candidate's religion or lack thereof, assuming the candidate is not an incompetent fool, and the candidate presents realistic ideas on how to best perform legitimate constitutional obligations.

However, if we do want to enforce morality at gunpoint, oughtn't we get the priorities straight? Am not mocking or refuting, merely discussing-- Most likely the majority of citizens are either christian, jewish, or muslim. All three recognize the ten commandments as the first laws of god. There are thousands more laws in the texts, but before we go enforcing other blblical morality then oughtn't the highest priority be to firmly enforce the entire decalogue at gunpoint?

Thou shalt have no other gods before me -- Do we punish infractions with taxes and fees? Tickets and fines? Or should this first and presumably most important moral value be punished as a misdemeanor or felony? Which god is the real one? Perhaps as a nod to each locality's community values, we should empower duly elected local police and judges to pick the proper god? Of course if it gets to a jury trial then the jurors get to define the proper god.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth -- If we apply plain text reading-- Then as far as I can tell it is illegal to photograph, draw, sculpt, or otherwise represent any feature of the sky, under the ground, or under water? What is the punishment for a fella who draws a schematic of an oil well or takes an underwater photo of a shark or makes an astrophoto of a nebula? Well actually, the first phrase seems standalone independent of the rest, which may prohibit just about all photos, drawings, and schematics? Is this one punishable by fine, jail, or execution? I mean, you never can tell-- If a fella makes an otherwise-innocent-looking photo or drawing, he might sneak off and secretly worship that image behind locked doors. In abundance of caution, the safest policy is a complete ban on all visual representations of everything?

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me-- OK that is easy enough to understand. If a fella makes a visual portrayal or prays to the wrong god, then whatever penalty selected shall also be levied on the dude's children, grand-children, and great-grandchildren. Easy-peasy!

And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments-- More lenient sentences for true believers? Perhaps lower tax rates for believers. Preferential government loans and preferential hiring policy for believers?

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain-- Fines, jail, or execution?

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates-- Clear enough. Definitely can't buy bait or go fishing on the holy day. Or hardly anything else. Guess the police should drive around writing tickets to anyone caught outside on the holy day unless the criminal can prove he hadn't been planning to cut the grass or paint the shed? Do we make it Sunday, Saturday, or Friday? I suggest the day be selected by local community values-- Saturday in majority Adventist or Jewish neighborhoods, Friday in majority Muslim neighborhoods, and Sunday everywhere else.

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee-- That one sounds good. I can call 911 if the daughter gives me any lip. Maybe put her in jail if she ever votes to cut my social security! Cutting my social security would definitely be disrespectful. In fact it would be disrespectful not to at least quadruple my social security!

Thou shalt not kill (or alternately, murder in some translations)-- Finally, we got to a commandment that is already on the lawbooks!

Thou shalt not commit adultery-- We used to have laws about that. Probably still on the books most places. So we just need to allocate a few hundred billion dollars to fund the Adultery Enforcement Agency to go out there and ensure that adulterers are caught and punished.

Thou shalt not steal-- Another one we already try pretty hard to enforce. Probably not much new law is needed.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour-- We already regulate this in some settings both criminally and civilly, but maybe we should tighten it up and go after all those gossipy neighbors.

Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour's-- Except for people who act-out the covetousness, we need to improve the science of mind-reading. Though even with present technology we could gather suitable evidence for some prosecutions. For instance, given video evidence of a fella's gaze lingering too long on an ass belonging to the neighbor's wife, or even worse, an ass belonging to the neighbor, then it should be evidence suitable for conviction. However we need to pass a government exception to the previous graven image law. Otherwise the government could not make an evidentiary video without breaking its own law.

Dang, there's other places in the bible about effeminate men, but in the above highest priority set of morals, I don't see anything mentioning gay marriage, though possibly we might occasionally catch a gay coveting his neighbor's ass?

Edited July 15, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[RobertNashville]

Lester, you must have a lot of time on your hand this afternoon.

I don't know how many different ways I can say this but I'm talking about morals...I'm not talking about religion...any religion...not even the religion of atheism.

Morals and religion are not interchangeable terms.

Edited July 15, 2012 by RobertNashville

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Lester, you must have a lot of time on your hand this afternoon.

I don't know how many different ways I can say this but I'm talking about morals...I'm not talking about religion...any religion...not even the religion of atheism.

Morals and religion are not interchangeable terms.

Thanks Robert. Admittedly in my dotage have indeed become a poor manager of time.

I did not mean to ascribe properties to you. Sorry bout that. Was thinking of a demographic profile though perhaps it is merely in the eye of the beholder and does not actually exist in the real world.

Some USA socialists are atheist but the majority are religious. They read communitarian values in the bible-- They think jesus commanded caesar to tax the rich and give to the poor. I offer no opinion on validity of the beliefs but it is what it is. We needn't look far to find sermons plowing that field, even in fundamentalist protestant churches. Some early USA colonies began as religious utopian communist experiments, centuries before Karl Marx was even a twinkle in daddy Marx' eye. Some early christian churches in the Roman Empire were communist utopian experiments. When tried they typically don't thrive and consequently they don't last long. Anyway, some folks read scripture and come away with communitarian values. There is so much written that one can justify about any moral system depending on which passages to read versus other passages to ignore.

It is impossible to use ONLY objective evidence and logic to construct an ethical system. As in Geometry, one can't get anything done without basic assumptions immune to objective proof. By necessity atheists rely on non-provable basic precepts as do religious ethicists. There's no other way to play the game. No debate on fundamental precepts can rise above-- "Yes it tis" "No it tisn't" "Yes it tis" "No it tisn't"...

I can't justify my morals any better than the next fella but one core value-- As best possible, people should be left alone to do as they please, provided they harm no one else. From that perspective, unnecessary meddling is obviously immoral even if individual meddlers are otherwise well-intentioned good-hearted people. Meddlers oftentimes "unintentionally" do evil acts with sincere heart-felt good intentions. I try to level-headedly accept both good and bad in people, but because I am a flawed imperfect person, sometimes meddlers just really piss me off. Both left-wing and right-wing meddlers.

Perhaps there is a social conservative somewhere who might explain, "After years study of Aristotle, Confucius, Kant and Nietzsche, I have concluded that gay marriage and artificial birth control are immoral." Perhaps even, "After years of careful large-sample biochemiical investigation I have concluded that gay marriage and artificial birth control are immoral to a null-hypothesis probability no higher than 0.05" However, such folk are rare as snakes suspenders. Will venture further by positing that dollars-to-donuts such folk also happen to be heavily religious and the religious conviction motivated all that work attempting "objective proof".

In the recent primary, it is relatively certain that Bachmann, Santorum, Perry and even "intellectual" Gingrich were plowing that field based on the bible rather than ancient philosophy or laboratory findings. In writings and speech of those candidates supporters, "True Conservative" and "True Christian" became interchangeable terms. Apparently one can't be a "true conservative" without being a "true christian" or vice-versa.

So anyway that was the background of my previous message-- One must look carefully in scripture and then squint with one eye closed to find absolutely unambiguous proscription of gay marriage or artificial birth control. However the Decalogue is as obvious as the nose on one's face. If a candidate's morals are scripturally based then it seems an OCD aspergers oddness to enforce obscure scriptural proscriptions at gunpoint as long as the government enforces barely 20 percent of the decalogue at gunpoint. That looks like a rather severe priority inversion. It would seem most logical to focus on higher priority moral decay in society such as our serious graven image problems, not to mention our shoddy near-nonexistent sabbath enforcement.

Right or wrong, candidates like that chase off numerous normal fiscal-conservative people who hate to be in debt and they can balance a checkbook just fine. Right or wrong, too many people listen to a Bachmann, Palin, Santorum or Perry and the first part of the speech about cut spending and balance the budget sounds great. But then the candidate can't help but jump with both feet into social conservativism, at which point many "normal people" conclude "I liked the fiscal responsibility part but that candidate is insane."

Now Romney has been smart enough to stay mostly mum on scripture. Perhaps Romney can escape the nutjob classification in enough voters' minds. On the other hand if he stays too mum, the religious right won't lend full support because after all one must be a "true christian" in order to be a "true conservative."

[RobertNashville]

...

Lester, I'm still not sure why you keep going on about religion...I'm also at a loss regarding what you are really trying to communicate but I guess that's okay.

I don't need a religion for me to know that murdering someone is an immoral act...that it's wrong. I don't need a god in my life for me to understand that taking, without permission, something I didn't earn from someone who did earn it is a immoral. I don't need religion to conclude that being untruthful with others is wrong. I can figure this out without religion because I can see the harm done to individuals and to society in general when people lie or steel or murder. I'm not saying that a person's religions beliefs or lack of beliefs don't or can't influence the moral principles they base their life on but one is not required to have the other.