Liberal Values

I live in Utah, where I am incensed by the recent appearance of billboards reading "Vote your Values. Vote Republican." These billboards add on to my frustration with the way republicans consistently assume the moral high ground. Many analysts claim that the 2004 election was decided on the issue of morals. This is alarming to me.x

My roommate asked me the other day why I am liberal. The response I gave really surprised him. I told him that I am liberal because I feel a moral obligation to it. I told him how I consider much of the republican platform to be morally abhorrent. This surprised him, because he had been raised and conditioned to believe that the moral high ground is something owned and controlled by the republicans. To this, I whole-heartedly disagree.

Unfortunately, when people say morals or values, what they are oftentimes talking about is abortion. I have found that there are so many people who vote on abortion only. Just the other day a friend told me that she would consider being a democrat, except that she doesn't believe in abortion. So abortion becomes the political trump card. I find this odd because the war regarding abortion is largely over. Even though we keep electing people based solely upon abortion, nothing is happening in that arena. No big law changes are occurring. Abortion is largely, in my mind, a done issue.

Let's assume that I'm wrong and that abortion is not a dead issue. We are still claiming that it holds importance above all other moral issues. This is ridiculous to me. It is unlikely that abortion is going to be an issue in my life. I don't believe in it, so it should stay away from me. It will not take the life of a loved-one. It will not come into my home and steal my valuables. It will not affect me at all. One the other hand, things like socialized medicine and DMCA are things that do affect us on a daily basis.

There are so many other "moral" issues in the political world that will and do affect us all. Why must we focus on a moral issue that will not affect us. This goes for gay marriage as well. I am opposed to gay marriage, but it's something that will not come into my life and affect me much. It will not cheapen my heterosexual relationships. I don't understand how people can claim that. That is why I am unable to get riled up about these issues. It seems to me that the values the republicans place at the vanguard are all issues that require no sacrifice of their own. There purpose is just to tell other people what to do.

Does it not seem incongruous that the party that claims to be the moral party is the one that is fighting for the legality of torture and stripping of habeas corpus? Does it not seem incongruous that the party which apparently more greatly espouses Christian ethics is the party that has led us straight into the war in Iraq on a whole string of lies and deceptions? No, the republican party is not the bastion of goodness that many claim it to be. Maybe it was in its inception, but that was before big business purchased the party.

I believe that the liberals are the ones who truly have the moral high ground. Hugh B. Brown, a former apostle of the Mormon church, explained very well and succinctly his reasons for being a democrat by saying, "I am a democrat because I believe that they are kinder to the poor." That sums it up really well. Liberals are the champions of most of the moral causes that are before the American people. The liberals are the ones who are fighting against global warming. They're the ones that fight for socialized medicine. Liberals are the ones that champion the cause of free speech.

All of the above are moral issues in my mind. They are moral issues that require sacrifice on our part, generally of money. This puts these moral positions in contrast with the ones the republicans champion which only require the condemnation of other people.

Now, this all begs a particular question. How did the party of the civil rights movement become labeled as the party of the devil? How did the party that believes in socialized medicine end up with the epithet of immoral? I think this comes down to the fact that the democratic party is incompetent while the republicans are extremely well organized. If you doubt me, look at the 2004 election. The republicans have made a strong campaign of morality, evidenced by the billboards mentioned at the outset of this article. Sadly, the democrats have allowed this to happen without bringing up their own morality. It seems that the democrats in an effort to be different from the republicans have willingly accepted this state of affairs.

This needs to be changed. Liberals need to organize and combine their voices in the battle-cry that we are the "good" party. We need to stress with the world that if you care about morality, your home is not with the conservatives it is with the liberals.