This is a topic that I've wanted to discuss ever since the presidential elections got over. This election redefined the meaning of moral values. The highest percentage of voters (22%) voted based on the so-called moral values and 80% of those folks voted for our president George W Bush. This term includes all fundamental questions related to marriage, religion and faith or as media puts it "God, Guns and Gays”. What ever happened to the moral values of yesteryears -Equal Rights, Compassion and Social Justice? In a lot of ways, these folks voted to say that they wanted to have their next door neighbor having an abortion or being gay as part of the moral value discussion but didn’t want 35.8 million people living under poverty level (an increase of close to 4 million from last year) as part of it! Now some people might ask if poverty should come under moral values discussion.
I believe that it’s a moral disgrace that low-wage workers who work full time are not paid enough to lift their families out of poverty. The minimum wage is 35% less than what it was in 1968 taking inflation into consideration. In relative terms, minimum wage workers in 1968 earned $7.72 an hour when compared to today’s minimum wage of $5.15 an hour and there are states like Kansas ($2.65) and Ohio ($4.25) where the state minimum wage is less the federal wage. While worker productivity has risen over the past 30 years, minimum wages seems to have gone down. Between 1968 and 2000, productivity grew 74.2 percent, yet wages for minimum-wage workers fell by 35 percent. There are close to 45 millions people who lack health insurance. The rise was more dramatic for children. There were 12.9 million living in poverty last year, or 17.6 percent of the under-18 population. That was an increase of about 800,000 from 2002, when 16.7 percent of all children were in poverty. I think the issues around moral values should be centered around showing compassion and empowerment and not about the ones defined by the democrats and republicans in 2004 election.
FDR said that the success of moral values can be measured by whether we provide enough for the "have nots" and not by adding to the pockets of the folks who have enough. I do know that the system cannot solve all the problems and there are folks who take advantage of the system! But that shouldn’t stop us from fixing the loop holes so that the real people - the people who need help do not suffer. Lets get back to the real moral values discuss on how to economically and socially empower the under privileged people.
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2 comments:
"The moral values of yesteryears" - which yesteryears?
This country was founded by people escaping a totalitarian regiem that was intolerant of differing religeous viewpoints. They came to worship their God as they chose - not as the state proscribed. So much for establishing God as a value of our yesteryears.
Guns. Guns have been a tool and a technology that have been with us since the afore mentioned founders of this nation landed on its shores. Had they been unarmed, the totalitarian regiem they were fleeing would be in control of this nation (or we would be speaking French). The gun was a key piece of technology during our Westward expansion. Previous administrations had imposed restrictions on the use and ownership of these tools. The current administration has made moves back toward the freedoms enjoyed by the founders. As has been shown time after time, a nation where all the guns are in the hands of the government is a nation enslaved.
Gays - Lets talk religion here. The bond of matrimoney has been an issue of the church and the people for years. The entire Anglican Church and its offshoots came about because the church had one definition of what it is to be wed and the leader of the totalarian system of government wanted another. When Rome refused the political wishes of the ruler, he simply changed the system. Had the ruler been willing to recognize a "wedding" as something that happens between individuals and the church and a "union" as a civil contract between individuals and the state, great disruption could have been avoided.
You call for a return to traditional values yet you mock the President for trying to reflect just those values. Equal Rights and Social Justice are modern concepts - they have been in vogue a mere 40 years in this country. Throughout much of the world, they still have not taken hold.
No moral societey can be lead by an immoral man. If we truely want our society to reflect moral values, we need to have leaders of clear moral direction. Only then can we have a just, fair society with equal opportunity and advantage for all. By the way, that means ALL THE MEMBERS OF THAT SOCITEY - not the rest of the wrold! Our societey will not attain the goals you would like to see if we keep allowing the corporations who want to call themselves members of this society to use their resources to prop up other societies.
This is one place where you and I can find a point of agreement. Our current leadership is far to happy to provide economic advantages to companies who whish to export our social system to the rest of the world. Had the other candidate been elected, he would have taken steps to protect and lift up the poor here at home - not outsourced to the third world.
I want to return to the values of our founders (you want to return to the values of Timothy Leary). We both want to uplift the masses (my candidate needs to be more of a protectionist). You quote FDR. I want to see a return to WPA types of programs to help the unemployed learn new skills and do great civic works.
Perhaps you and I are not so different after all.
Mr. Winkie
The Ramblings & Misspellings of a Simple Man.
Wow! A barrage of facts and numbers, I am a simple man and I look at the world with the same affection. I do not know what "Morality” means and by whose definition it is "Defined". What I do know is that hypocrisy is the veil that covers the eyes of those who embrace this “Popular" definition of Morality.
This Morality roughly consists of crying "OUTRAGE" when a single breast of shown during a NFL game in the mist of all the Viagra and Livetra ads and staying mute when our children are showered daily with images of violence (e.g.Iraq War LIVE). Excuse me, what a generalization! But I am only a simple man with a simple mind.
One thing I learned from this election is that the American vote is CHEAP! And those that whiled this sword of change are simply sheep seeking the next Shepard to lead them to the next green pasture, even if the Shepard is really a wolf in shipyards clothing. So does anyone know if sheep think or just follow?
So in my mind the question is how to we educate the sheep? How do we teach them to remove the veil over their eyes? How to we teach our fellow citizens in the "Middle" of our beloved land mass to read deeper between the lines. How do we teach them to question their freedom and not get their state of freedom from the mass media? Or am I just as simple minded as the middle country folk?
I find it ironic that in a nation so powerful and free. The most watched news show is on "Comedy Central". How about that for a Morality check
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