"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution like a whale goes through a net. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." JohnAdams
"When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken." -- Benjamin Disraeli
When the USA was founded, the majority of its citizens were on the same page morally. Today, where it is popular to say NoAbsoluteTruth, my morality is good for me and yours is good for you, we have seen an exponential rise in the number of laws on the books. As people no longer can agree on a moral code, we have had to codify our morality in law. -- BrucePennington
Would you be willing to offer an example or two of instances where, in your opinion, morality today needs to be legislated but did not need to once upon a time? --JasonFelice
I admit this is not an area I have a lot of exposure to, but off the top of my head: Statutory rape laws, child molestation laws, domestic violence laws, legal drinking age laws. Certainly there are many laws today that exist to regulate activity that only exists because of the IndustrialRevolution, commerce that wasn't even contemplated in 1776; but some of the principles are unchanged like cheating, lying, insider trading, contractual ethics that now must be codified when, back then, the idea that you would have to have laws to make people honor their word would have seemed rediculous. -- BrucePennington
'As people no longer can agree on a moral code, we have had to codify our morality in law.' Hmm, but shouldn't laws reflect the moral code? Isn't leagalizing anthing else not codifying that, but imposing someone elses morality (that of someone with an assumed 'higher' morality) on everyone else? If we cannot agree, we cannot codify. We could choose a common denominator at best.
By the way, my sister set out studying law to learn why we give us laws. She quit when she discovered, that this fundamental question was not answered (and switched to social sciences). WhyDoWeNeedLaws?? If we are moral, we don't need them and if we aren't they wont help either (except for our neighbors to tell us wrong).
I've heard it described as LordOfTheFliesSyndrome. Some people require a little more help with "being good" than others.
The edge case is the near-sociopath who insists that, "if you don't have rules specifically forbidding [foo] then I am implicitly allowed to do [foo] without penalty." This is a condition encouraged by people who make their living "interpreting" the rules, that is, attorneys.
The law should be about not interfering with other people's rights. If you want to have sex with cats and it does not keep the neighbor's awake at night: have at it! However, if perhaps it starts to spread horrible deaseses around society, then it bumps into other's rights and a judgement call is needed to weigh the issue. That is not morality, but practicality.
I think the difference between liberal and conservative thinking on this is that conservatives want to force (their view) of God's behavior code on others, while liberals say, "Let God keep score and dole out the punishment in the afterlife, only worrying keeping society smooth here on earth". Cons want "heaven on Earth", liberals will wait. This is why cons are obsessed with sexual sins and liberals are not. If being gay is evil, let God punish them in the afterlife rather than turn the govmt into a sex spy for God. -- RedHat
Laws define our society. The boundaries of our social structure are drawn in the sand by laws. We need social structure to promote and protect our wellbeing. Christians feel that they have found truths about social behavior that promote growth and prosperity for the human race. Defying those truths have shown to be detrimental to our wellbeing, both personally and collectively.
Bull. Northern Europe has some of the most lax sexual practices, yet have one of the highest standards of living, perhaps passing the US if employment or income stability is given points. Many of the problems we have with teens are because kids are not given a good reality lesson. Abstence looks good on paper, but does not work in practice. Northern Europe makes sure kids understand birth control and know their options. Thus, less teen pregnancies. In the US, dogma is the problem, not solution.
The reason conservatives want to control certain behaviors is because they care about our society's health, because they care about the people around them, not to mention their own lives and the lives of their children. I agree that many behaviors should not have to be legislated; but our nation's moral code has deteriorated to the point that for our society's health, we are having to draw new lines in the sand. Some of those lines could be avoided with just better education. Uganda is a good example. They are the only nation in Africa that is experiencing a downturn in the HIV rate. Reason? Their president & wife are Christians who initiated a 3 point education system to fight the spread of HIV. It's core concept is abstinance (see ABC Plan for more). They didn't have to make laws outlawing premarital sex. They made a positive impact for their society using education. This could be done in the USA, but most efforts like this are thwarted by liberal organizations like the ACLU and the NEA. So, we go to the least effective, but only avenue left - the law. -- BrucePennington
Interesting that "They didn't have to make laws outlawing premarital sex". In other words, it is off topic. This is about laws. You have all the right to evanglize in appropriate places and times. However, stop regulating my dick in Congress!
Yeah, this description is terribly backwards. Organizations like the ACLU get involved when you try to legislate morality or censorship. They tend to defend your right to evangelize anything you damn well please.
It doesn't matter what a group's motivations are, Bruce. The desire to legislate more than a basic minimum of widely agreed-upon morality is hubris of the worst kind. It's exactly what most of the founders of the U.S. wanted to avoid. I am not interested in having Christians impose on me, via legislation, their notion of wellbeing, or even of growth and prosperity, all of which allow of varying and highly subjective definitions. -- DanMuller
Bruce, can we look at this from a different angle for just a bit? What I'm reading here seems to me a definite plan to shape the behavior of other people to be moral, and that willingness to allow freedom from laws - while desirable - is only acceptable if people would adhere to the moral precepts without the laws. Would you agree with the way I've written that? --JasonFelice
Well that was the basic assumption (that people would adhere to moral precepts without laws) of the FoundingFathers. Their desire was not to control moral behavior, it was just assumed that everyone would self-govern. Today it is clear that many will not. So, in order to maintain the societal construct that has made the USA what it is, we are having to codify behavioral standards that were always agreed upon in the past, but no longer are. The goal is not to make people moral -- it is to maintain the societal model. How is that done? Defining it into law. Since laws define acceptable behavior, then we complain that we are having someone's moral code forced upon us. That is true, though, because AllLawsLegislateMorality. -- BrucePennington
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