"America may have entered the equivalent of Rome’s bread and circus period, but I believe we can reverse this cultural decline by restoring a culture of the common good. This is nothing more complicated than a personal and political commitment to watch your neighbor’s back"

This may be the one thing that should resonate from your candidacy. America has never been about fairness and opportunity. It has always been about "getting mine" until the stock market crash and the Great Depression threatened the entire political system. There was no social safety net, just the individual commitment to watch out for your neighbor. The conservatives that have had a hissy for the past forty years over the "welfare state" have never had a problem accepting the largesse of politicians in shifting their costs to the taxpayer.

All the things you decry in this missive are individual choices. You just don't like the choice that some have made:

Greed- Isn't that one of the deadly sins?

Excessive Materialism- Isn't that just another face of gluttony?

Instant Gratification- The sin of envy comes to mind

Torture- Well, lumping Bush into the fray also brings sloth into the discussion of wrath, but please stop spreading the ticking-bomb meme in the discussion. Nothing can be further from reality to believe that the 24hr scenario would be dissuaded by torture. In fact, if the bomber was that motivated to do it to begin with, do you not think that they would be heartened to hold out for that time just to know that the bomb had gone off?

Internet Porn- Well, lust has been around long before the Puritans, and again, it's an individual decision, like all the Puritans that would routinely relieve their sexual urges with farm animals. Or the bible thumping conservative preachers that hurry out from bible services to gay prostitute's "services"

So let me wrap up with the one thing that wasn't mentioned so far:

"We will win it by winning the underlying moral argument that a culture of the common good is morally superior"

No thanks. Good public policy is not "morally superior"- it's either good public policy or not.

And it comes awful close to "Pride".

Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran

Notrol,

Good public policy is not "morally superior"- it's either good public policy or not.

Might we take a discussion of the common good further if we discussed it terms of ethics rather than morality?

"The religious left"

Oh jesus, that's gonna be a hoot! Mebbe Jesus can save America after all?

I was with you when you wrote about the problems that excessive greed is causing our society. I agree with that entirely. I'm disappointed that you can't recognize that opposition to all tax paying, and support for all tax cuts is the major way that greed is harming our country.

When you start moralizing about porn you lose me. Porn is, to start with, largely in the eye of the beholder. What was universally accepted as porn in our country just 50 years ago, is now seen as acceptable expression of sexuality. Who knows what the future will bring?

So, lets just limit this discussion to the real problem - "tax cuts = good. tax hikes = bad. This philosophy must eventually lead to a "bankrupt" government, with no revenue at all.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Well, now you've lost me, destor23. I've seen your comments on here and I almost always universally agree with your politics. A few times I have noticed a hostility toward religion, but I let it pass, as we on the religious left actually believe in tolerance.

What I don't understand is how you were with Tom when he talked about courage and conviction and morality and dignity and fairness and peace and justice...but when he mentions the source of those values-- his faith-- you bail.

Of course Tom isn't going to look to pass laws against conspicuous consumption (unless you count progressive taxation) or to enforce morality (unless you count immigration reform to avoid exploitation or measures to protect children from sexual predators or to end State sanctioned torture) but I think his call to the common good is EXACTLY what we are missing in politics today.

If you have read Reich's latest book, he talks about how we as consumers have sold out we as citizens. I'm energized by Tom's message, and if we had more people like him running all over the nation, there might not be so much apathy among the voting public.

When someone says that there is some kind of a "common good" we can look out for I grasp my moral, political, and financial wallet real tight, cause I know he wants to take something from me for the "common good"
Tell me you are gonna take it from somebody else, and tell me who, and tell me you are gonna give it to me, and you got a shot.
Tell me I need to give something up, and why, and who gets it, and I'll consider it. It may have to be done.
But start talking about the "common good" especially our moral "common good" and all I hear is "Watch out"!

Why do you think someone is "taking something from you?" Does a kid in grade school really "take something from you" when he gets a lousy free lunch? Does it really hurt you financially when Grandma uses her medicare? Half of all discretionary spending in the budget of the United States goes for the "common defense" and I never hear the wingnuts bitch about that.

Bev, when kids in school don't get a free lunch, that is taking something from me. When any person, for any reason, is denied civil rights, that is taking something from me. When our country cannot find the heart or money to support the elderly, the disabled, or act with compassion and generousity to the orphan, that is taking something from me.
Most of all, when those who profit from the infrastructure and hard work of people are allowed to rip and run, that takes something from me. Does that help?

Pretending there is some "common good" to which all Americans subscribe is, from my life's observation, a crock. For 20 or more years I have seen the interests of a very few, who already had more than most, touted as the "common good".
The phrase has lost its meaning, I think that is why he uses it. There are a lot of "common goods". So let's define what we are talking about, and who takes and who gives. You know, the "common good" is a lot like "free trade", but maybe, I'll grant, not as perverted as "freedom"

Yes, that does help. I see what you mean and I agree with you.

Thanks so much for responding Bev. I appreciate it.

You're quite welcome.

So, if I stop looking at porn, and take care of my mother and father-in-law as they grow older, and don't cheat the people who work for me, the US will stop making war on Iraq, and stop outsourcing jobs and infrastructure to authouritarian countries, cause they appreciate how much I revere the "common good"?

Tell me, does the "common good" demand that Bush, Cheney, et al face an international law court, or does the "common good" mean not letting foreigners get their hands on our leaders so they can railroad them?

There is no easier phrase to misuse, and frankly, I suspect anyone who would use it at this point of obfuscation, at the very least.

Please understand this, re your statement:

What I don't understand is how you were with Tom when he talked about courage and conviction and morality and dignity and fairness and peace and justice...but when he mentions the source of those values-- his faith-- you bail.

Some people cite their faith as a source of courage and conviction and morality and dignity and fairness and peace and justice.  In my view, faith gets in the way of those very things, because the thoughtfulness and decisions that one makes to arrive at those goals are removed by an acceptance of someone else's dogma. 

Morality, honesty and justice beome intrinsic and valued when those goals have been thought out and actually DECIDED; also they are more sincere when rewards (eternal life) are removed from them.  I know how hard it is for religious people to really believe that people can actually want to be good without the fear of eternal hell-fire, but I can only say that being the kind of person you believe you should be is your own reward.

It strikes me that there are many people who do horrible things and justify it by scriptures; those who do bad things and justify it because they just don't care also exist.  One is as bad as the other, in my humble opinion.

People who do good things --> well, who cares why they do them?  It makes the world a better place, and again -- doing good should be it own reward, so no ideology should get the credit.

That said, I also find some good things in Tom's message, although it is a little more heavy-handed than I thought when he first started posting.  I want to hear more before I really decide if he is someone I want to support here in Virginia.

Jan

There is no culture war on greed. It's a convenient aside in 20% of Hollywood gossip shows. There is a sustained war on pleasure, enjoyment, and elevating the human condition beyond the sniveling servants of God preferred by E-vengelicals, who are themselves dripping with ill-gotten and excessive riches.

Regarding this:

...do any of us honestly believe that the ready availability of internet porn is not destroying something sacred within us?

What do you consider is sacred within us?

How can porn, internet or otherwise destroy it? 

Do you think that there are other things, like poverty, illiteracy, war, religious zealotry, and hatred that are more destructive to our humanity than watching people have sex (which after all, is normal)?

I am 59 years old.  When I was 20, the guy who lived downstairs from me asked me to give some films to a friend of his.  They guy wasn't due for 2 days, and I knew how to run a projecter.  My roommate and I watched the poorest quality porn for 2 days!  It was funny and weird, and I watched every single frame!  So what?  I had very little experience, and I learned a little bit about life.  The people in the films were all older than me, and I was the same person afterwards that I was at the beginning.  That is my experience with porn.  Anyone else?  Oh, yeah.  I had another experience when I was in Nurse Practitioner School and they showed us Misty Beethoven to help us not be nervous about examining people of the opposite sex.

Any questions, children?

Jan

Add another voice of concern about the pornography position.

But do any of us honestly believe that the ready availability of internet porn is not destroying something sacred within us?

Study after study shows that porn tends to depict women in violently subjugated positions, and can shift norms of sexual expectations.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

A compassionate conservative is a contradiction in terms, just as enlightened liberal is a tautology.

Tom and group--

I can't say that I am a "regular" here at TPM, but I haven't seen much of this Mooser fellow until today, and all he has done is show up and say that if you use words like "common good," you must be an evil Republican.

Seriously, I fear for our country if phrases like the common good, morality and, (gasp!) freedom have been so warped by the right that anyone who tries to enter politics sounding like a 21st Century Bobby Kennedy is questioned this aggressively.

Lets keep our eyes on the ball, people.

I couldn't agree more, CVille. True self worth comes from within. The doing of something has to come from ones true nature or it's worth is tainted. It's also true that if we are to survive as a nation and for that matter as a species we must find a way to find worth in each other because of who we are not who or whether we worship.

Let me say something about moral priorities. I spent the first 3 days as a guest blogger speaking almost entirely about the Iraq War, torture, and the possibility of war in Iran. The emphasis of my posts on conviction politics was that Dems too often fall back into the safe space of the "it's been mismanaged" or “not our business” critique rather than making the case for what was wrong about this war from the start – that unilateral preemptive war is fundamentally unethical.

Even with this post, I spent the bulk of this post talking about an ethical critique that applies primarily to our economy, health care, wages, and torture. Then I mentioned the explosion of internet porn as an exaple. Yet several of the posts seem to suggest that I am so obsessed with banning people from seeing porn (a position I did not take) that I am ignoring these other issues. That kind of response, frankly, seems utterly out of step with what I have presented. I obviously knew the porn example would provoke a response, but I find it disconcerting that hundreds more words have been spent responding to that than to the points about economic fairness and a just end in Iraq, a plan we spent months talking to Iraqis and security experts to develop. One of the things that bothers me about our national debate on values is that we end up spending more time talking about sex than war and justice. It is not that we should never talk about sex publicly but that we should be able to do without it immediately trumping other issues of greater urgency.

I am also trying to make a deeper point, which may not have been clear. I do believe there is a connection between our cultural values and the policies that emerge on war, wages, and the environment. This was my point about Dr. King’s prophetic speech on Vietnam. He went well beyond that single war to talk about a culture of militarism, racism, and excessive materialism that enabled it. I believe that the have conservatives won, and continue to win, the moral case for greed and for security through unilateral force in part because we don't even want to have the conversation. If talking about what is truly good means opening the possibility that someone may question our personal choices, we resent it.

I believe our problems go deeper than the war in Iraq, and the build up to war in Iran is a perfect example. If we keep talking about isolated problems ( Iraq ) instead of the values that enable them (militarism, exceptionalism, instant gratification), we will always be fighting as underdogs when the next debate arrives.

Yes, Lincoln was a great, moral man. And it should not be forgotten that he ended that speech to Congress from which you quoted with these words, "And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts."

God help Tom if he were to say something like that around the Mooser.

To pick a nit, it was a preventive, not preemptive war. Preemption, with good reason an attack is imminent, is generally accepted to be within the laws of land warfare, and would be defensible under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Preventive war involves a completely different ethical and theoretical basis.

I would like to hear your definition of militarism. So many people use it in different ways, I would rather not guess.

For the record, I was consistently opposed to the operation in Iraq, which, precisely, is a campaign in a broader war, when the saber-rattling got obvious. I have consistently opposed, in substantial detail, a military action against Iran. I am not, however, opposed to all military actions. It is not clear where you stand on such; that's one reason I explicitly ask what you mean by militarism.

Has it occurred to you that you might not have disagreement on some of the other issues? I am intensely interested in healthcare, and both guest blog about it and deal with it professionally. There seemed no particular reason to discuss it in this thread. I discuss it in other threads, where there are quite specific policy discussions. If there were specific proposals here, I missed them.

In like manner, I just posted, at Wikipedia, the last major (I hope) article of a rather extensive series on intelligence. I find that there is too little real information easily available on the topic.

Do you think ending the war in Iraq has not been discussed at TPMcafe, just a little, here and there? Your bringing it up is a bit of dog bites man. Something with a flavor of not just censorship, but deciding on others' morality (i.e., whatever is, or is not, sacred in me is my own damn business) is more man bites dog. Going down the subjugated women route comes across as heterocentrist and disapproving of consensual variants on sex.

I do believe there is a connection between our cultural values and the policies that emerge on war, wages, and the environment.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

JOG,

but when he mentions the source of those values-- his faith-- you bail.

Well, now you've lost me, JOG. Where did Tom mention his faith? I missed it. Do you have a quote on that?

He didn't lose you. You did.

No doubt you want to be unfettered, but not all expression leaves others free after you're done expressing yourself. And to the extent expression does damage to others, it can be regulated. That is the constitutional law we have now. "Unfettered" shows that you should read up on speech cases in the Supreme Court Reporter.

Porn erodes relationship morals and therefore meaningful relationships. We've heard folks lie about its harmlessness long enough. Meaningful relationships involve love and dependable commitment in service to one another. Porn erodes that, and other causes will be found for pretextual blame to cover the shame of the real cause of a fizzled relationship.

Since sex apparently is the crack cocaine of material sales, I wouldn't expect ad dependent media to report that porn is poisonous, because it is the basis for exploiting a dopamine-rewarded behavior to influence buying behavior.

What to do about the damaging media? That's a different topic. I think a culture sea-change makes sense. It's all we have if laws can't apply.

Tom: I believe we can reverse this cultural decline by restoring a culture of the common good.

Mooser: The phrase [common good] has lost its meaning, I think

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

"Common good" and "general welfare" sound very similar to me. So what's wrong with promoting the Constitution? Has the Constitution of the United States lost its meaning? Certainly Americans can agree on some government programs that serve the general welfare. Fire protection, education, public health--the purpose of government is to provide these elements, and more, that serve the common good.

That's what Tom will ask us to do, so let's shut up about whether there is a common good or not--there is--and look at how it can be best be defined, and whether it ought to be provided by the public or private sectors.

ecotourism
WeGoEco.com

You sure seem offended by his free speech, his freedom of religion, and his belief that morality in relationships impacts the quality of those relationships. Or are you one of those who would ban ethics from philosophy and morals from ethics?

You also seem most offended by the idea that anything could be sacred. In fact, I believe that sacredness may be what provokes your rages the most. You can't stand the word, can you. It triggers a guilty rage, it seems.

And that is the point of arguing the healthiness of social morals, and finding common ground in them.

We probably are in near universal agreement. But here's my problem with religion when it comes to cultural matters -- religion is the party that's on the attack. Somebody who makes porn just wants to sell porn to people. The institutions of religion don't concern them. Somebody who views porn just wants to get off. Religion is not their issue. But religious groups made porn an issue for government. That has to be stopped. Religious people shouldn't be using government to coerce other people's behavior. They can use rhetoric, sure. But not government.

So, I'm not hostile to religion, per se. Believe whatevcr you need to believe.

But don't seek to impose those beliefs. You personally are probably not the sort to do so. But one group's moral beliefs shouldn't effect another's.

I'm sure Tom's not for outright censorship. But using the pulpit of government to stoke social sanction isn't right either. And, remember that the government can discriminately tax certain forms of expression without censoring them.

I know I seem hostile to religion. But I hope you understand that some of that hostility is in self defense. I don't go into churches telling people how to act. Why do they come out of churches with such suggestions and demands?

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

"Religious fruitcakes." A phrase meant to marginalize religious people and make them lesser citizens because you disagree with them.

Studies more recent than the 80s show productivity, jobs and families lost to the net addiction of pornography.

So regarding your first sentence, if you do the former you can actually manage the latter.

What good you do in your backyard has a cumulative effect with others' good. That's the "common good" assumption, that there are things in common we can do that are good.

Unedited: "Wow... that's kind of a prude response."

My edit: Sorry, that was my initial reaction. I should have done better than hurling names, though.

Seriously, though... my view on something like porn, or any outsider art, is that the effects don't matter. People should have the right to express themselves and the right to consume whatever expressions they want. I don't like the idea of people having their behavior limited just because, hypothetically, somebody lost a marriage or job or whatever over it.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Poverty, illiteracy, war, and hatred are destructive to humanity. That doesn't mean net porn or other types are not. I think porn motivates men to dislike their spouses' bodies and deem them uninteresting by comparison. It's an immoral virtual visitation of strangers into committed relationships.

And religious zealotry depends on what a religion ties someone to. If it is actually Jesus Christ their religion ties them to, then there is only good there. If one's religion ties them to greed or avarice, then there is no good or God there, just greed.

If a person is zealous to be like Christ, neither is that destructive, unless he/she does not actually imitate Christ and does some evil instead.

Wow..I'm almost speechless here.

Everyone else has made the points, so I will just say that when I read the initial post, I thought it was made by a centrist Republican (at best).

I think (hope) you are saying that we must sacrifice nationally and have a true stake in our foreign and domestic policy, but if that is the case, you are really going about it the wrong way.

The problem is not that we have lost our "soul" as a nation. The problem is that there are too many people defining what that "soul" is, on both sides.

Porn is not the problem. Bling is not the problem. 50 Cent is not the problem. And if you really think these things are, you are the problem.

This is one of the most refreshing, fair, rational and reality-based comments on this topic I've read so far. Excellent.

There's also a question of degree here. I don't know if I would sign on to the claim that "porn undermines relationships" as such; porn has been around for a very long time and many relationships have prospered nonetheless. But the internet is an environment flooded with porn; when your 10-year-old gets his own email address, he's probably about 3 months from getting his first email advertising a porn site. That's very different from an environment where porn was available but largely concealed behind brown wrappers or on the back shelf of the periodical section. These differences in degree entail a difference in kind. For better or worse, the generation in their 20s now has already grown up familiar with a dizzying variety of pornography and sexual behavior that literally hadn't even been invented 15 years ago. The Baby Boomers may have thought they invented sex, but I'm pretty sure that the current generation actually has invented a few new twists.

Anyway, the human spirit is resilient and adaptable, and young people seem to still be able to relate to each other, apocalyptic NY Times Magazine articles to the contrary. But youth culture in the US really is increasingly toxic and shallow, and exposure to porn is part of this. The explicitness of points contests at fraternities etc. is rooted in malign changes in American character. It is possible for culture to change for the worse, and in the US, it has.

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

While I don't believe any baked goods were mentioned, you have made assorted comments that indicate you marginalize people who are not believers in a Judaeo-Christian religion, or committed to an alternative loving relationship, or both. I can't say Abrahamic if you limit marriage to one man and one woman.

No, I didn't mean gay marriage. I refer to Muslim, and fundamental Mormon, polygamy.

You keep referring to "sacred" as if that is a term equally understood and agreed-to by all.

I hear you marginalizing quite a few people do not live by your moral system.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Again, "we?" I've read and appreciated Viktor Frankl. Some of the significant things I took away were human drives for meaning, which were not necessarily involving a religious soul. He also recounts a rather chilling insight into the mind of an SS guard, who he manipulated into getting him proper medical treatment, rather than the usual immediate killing, after Frankl broke his arm.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Notrol,

There are more conservative, "moral" voters in rural southern Virginia than progressive "moral" voters...so what will Mr. Perriello have to offer them? That the "common good" is the right thing to do? They already know that, because Mr. Goode has defined the "common good" already in his terms. What are his (Mr. Goode's) terms? Read Mooser's posts. What are they (Virginians) going to have to give up for someone else to get.

I admit my unfamiliarity with the specific culture of southern Virginia, but I am compelled to believe that enough Virginians, southern or otherwise, as well as most Americans, pretty much have some notion of "common good" figured out for themselves.  But I would agree and add that the skillful manipulation of rhetoric to inject an otherwise abstract idea of the common good into a specific political agenda contains the potential for disappointment at best and disaster at worst.  

For an agenda to be ethically effective and morally neutral I submit that an emphasis on restoring the public sphere would go a long way to satisfy voters with progressive sensibilities and/or inclinations without imposing authoritarian tendencies we would otherwise find familiar in the positions of the religious right.  To restore the public sphere and inspire an ethic of civic patriotism, no one need give up their moral principles, nor is it necessary to impose a particularly subjective morality on the broader civil culture.

Mike7Woodson,

Poverty, illiteracy, war, and hatred are destructive to humanity. That doesn't mean net porn or other types are not. I think porn motivates men to dislike their spouses' bodies and deem them uninteresting by comparison.

Unfortunately, this reads like a projection of your own vulnerablity onto the society at large.  In the standard set by this example any expression, from the Victoria's Secret catalog to music video, could be considered pornographic simply by featuring models or performers that are in any way "easy on the eyes."

There are arts to cater to infinite manifestations of tastes, exciting and inspiring audiences with imagination, empathy and maturity.  Granted, there is also tremendous potential for exploitation and degradation.  There is an eternal paradox at work here.  Pornography is a lucrative and ubiquitous industry in the world, and we ought not fool ourselves into believing that it will go away or become sympathetic to that other abstraction, "family values."  Indeed, a great deal of pornography's appeal is its forbidden nature.  Perhaps there is a way to resist the tendency for the denial of that and embrace it on some civilizational level as the legitimate form of human expression that it always was and will likely remain. 

We routinely tolerate and regulate what can fairly be considered adult indulgences, many of which are obviously more destructive than any performance art, such as alcohol, tobacco and firearms.  These are available even as they are certainly not for everyone.  I think it would be a big mistake to reestablish the Hayes Commission, but I would submit that even low-impact regulatory action like applying progressive labor standards to the work environment of pornographic artists could begin to reduce the severity of the exploitative circumstances of those artists and advance an ethical adult entertainment industry.  

Your comment on restoring the public sphere is especially appropriate here at TPMcafe, with its coffeehouse metaphor, since Juergen Habermas gave credit, for modern writings on the public sphere, to social patterns of 17th century coffeehouses. Technology does have good and bad ways of mixing the public and private spheres. What has been bothering me in this thread is that the following morality and/or ethics are ultimately personal choices, and thus of the private sphere. Information gained in the public sphere can help develop a sense of ethics, but, to borrow from Kipling,

"Go back to Earth with lip unsealed—go back with open eye,
"And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die:
"That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one,
"And . . . the God you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!"

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Censorship may not be a viable or appropriate solution, but do any of us honestly believe that the ready availability of internet porn is not destroying something sacred within us?

Another vote here for not believing internet porn is destroying our Republic. 

In terms of the problems we have, putting in the same sentence as government-sanction torture is pretty much ridiculous. 

Seriously, though... my view on something like porn, or any outsider art, is that the effects don't matter.

Howard, I'll respond on the question of definitions of sacred and why Tom's use of any definition does not have to equal public policy. It can mean public sector cooperative leadership in overtly honoring what is sacred to his or her constituents in a general, yet effective way.

What is sacred, by a general definition, is that which the establishment clause anticipates that the government must not sully. The establishment clause is itself a law of sacredness, or "setting apart." However, it is not a clause of non-recognition or non-protection regarding the sacred and religious that is consistent with public health and safety rules. Here common interests overlap between laws and morals, and police powers in states traditionally protect public health, safety and morals. There is a sense in which no law achieves public health, safety and morals without popular support, but holds a line around which the people may do the rest. The "doing of the rest" seems to be the zone that Tom speaks of.

The Supreme Court has done some work on outlining in negative relief where government may and must not tread with respect to religion and its sacredness, which includes recognizing and guarding, not financing or governing, what is sacred exercise to the religious yet fully compliant with public safety and health laws. To know where not to tread, the branches of government must recognize the religious and sacred unless there a compelling state interest to disregard it, which again, has involved public health and safety.

Also what is sacred, is what the constitution anticipates are traditions which the people founding it recognized as desireable for protection in the First Amendment. Free exercise of religion is a positive right which contains the sacred but purposefully does not positively define it. It is a positive right because the substance of religions, absent biases or interventions of government, for the most part has been considered good for the commonwealth and community.

In our Church we have protested the Russian Federation's intense involvement (entanglement / principal-agent) with the Russian Orthodox Church when its leadership, the Moscow Patriarchate took over ultimate leadership of the Russian Church Abroad. Such an extreme comes about when the "common good" is lost to the sort of greed interests that Tom assails in his very sane piece. Rather than do what Tom is discussing and stand guard to hold the line of protection, to include recognizing the goodness of religion in society just as the Constitution already does, the door later opens to what Putin is doing to the Church in Russia. The door opens to this because the trends that Tom is talking about do erode a republic. Erosion leads to collapse of social fabric.

This is why I have made such a big deal of Russia's tampering with religious freedom and sanctity by nationalizing it for state objectives. Ultimately, politics is worldly and if it hijacks religion as a principal, it will destroy the sacredness of what it touches. It will ultimately kill those who remain sacred and do not tow the line of political objectives who are in the Church. It is religion that some secularists blame for the ill actions of such a commandeering state, and that is like blaming a hostage for a hostage-taker's actions.

So bleaching our culture of the sacred would begin with silencing leaders in all sectors who would do what the constitution has done: recognized and verbally, even loudly encouraging folks to seek the sacred in their respective faiths and use the power of their spiritual lives to do the good that government cannot. By silencing officials in this way, some argue they serve non-establishment. However, this is a false connection as generalized encouragement to all to follow their respective consciences in developing their faith traditions freely is not establishment whatsover.

Granted: that some in the GOP and among Dems and their trysts with greed-ideology and "the"ology contradict their sincerity in encouraging what the constitution encourages. But that is merely political hypocrisy of that particular official, and not proof that the sacred things publicly recognized as good, even encouraged, are not powerful for the public good.

Religions and their role in individual dignity, morals, well being and civil rights are worthy of encouragement. When bad actors get into these groups and do bad things, I wish to high heaven that the dishonest blamers of the religious / spiritual / and sacred would heed reason and stop persevering in false accusations.

"I do believe there is a connection between our cultural values and the policies that emerge "

I just don't know what you can mean by "our cultural values" in this diverse country of 300 million people. You must be making some implicit assumptions about how "our" is determined. I suggest that for anyone's set of cultural values there will be millions who share it, millions who share some but not all and millions who share very little if any.

The human being is not only driven, but also led. In this, perhaps one of the most powerful images is of an innocent baby which totally depends on parents to love him / her to live at all. And in this, I see a soul. Souls are vulnerable yet have courage despite it. Without souls, there is no courage.

If all is "drives" then all is mechanistic and no individual praise or censure is due for anyone acting as they act because it is all about their "drives" not their choices. We all simply do as the incidents and accidents have determined, to include the accident of choice and the accident of moral inferences from relational dealings.

If I can cite my "drive" and make a rule of one out of it, then I've become a Social Darwinist. And if that wasn't un-empirical enough, I could also embrace eugenics because afterall, it is the "drive" that the great accident of nature gave me.

I make this pathway argument not to say it is what you do with the "drive" premise, but to say that many have driven the ill-highway from soulless drives to atrocity.

We are also led, as I experience life, and led by those in whom we trust and who honor some trust in leading to our benefit. It's not merely transactional, unless one should reduce it to transaction by argument. And yet there's so much more to us. There is soul.

Freedom depends on soul, that which escapes what human drives control and responds to a greater and purely good existence beyond the dross referenced in the Desiderata.

Hardly a representative sample of what is out there. Not even close.

Your points miss the prevalence of American leaders who have always recognized the positive right of free exercise of religion as a general encouragement to Americans to freely exercise with sincerity their faiths, i.e. a thousand points of light, the social gospel etc. to take care of what government simply cannot. I think what some rabid atheist revisionists delusionally want is to sterilize what the First Amendment clearly encourages by its double protection: the fertility of spiritual living in the public by emphasizing economics as anesthesia and waxing blind to past dearths in collective moral and spiritual commons that put other civilizations in museums.

I also see George H.W. Bush's presidency as one in which this common-good generalization was inspirational to many within their own religious, philosophical or spiritual contexts. Sure he lacked the charisma of a Kennedy, from whose mouth "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" carried further. Yet I see the "thousand points of light" as very similar. However, this is the same George H.W. Bush who exercised collaborative deference to international law and cooperation in preparing (rapidly) the response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

Duplicate

Even if there is a prevalence of American leaders who believe what you claim, they have no governmental authority. Your definition of "rabid atheist revisionist" seems more and more to be anyone that doesn't follow certain Christian principles.

You keep citing economics. I keep coming back with specific philosophical references, and you keep ignoring them. You apparently claim that you have knowledge of my innermost motivations, and that I have a soul or that I am a coward. When did you get the direct interface to my brain?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Point taken.

"Leftist party line"? Care to make an actual substantive argument? Or at least point me to where this party line is published, since you apparently are sure that I couldn't have thought of these things myself.

I cited the Meese Commission because it was a prominent example, I would be more than happy to look at the "study after study" Tom claims exist if he would provide more than an assertion.

Perhaps you could provide some examples of what you consider "cultural decline," since we obviously disagree on that, along with some examples of this foisting you disapprove of.

It's interesting just how many comments the word "porn" elicits on a website . ..

Let me begin by drawing a distimctopm betweem the 1960s and the "me generation" of the 1970s and 1980s. Speaking of greed, Tom wrote: " "the sickness was certainly present in some of the post-great society liberal hangover of “do it if it feels good .  . ."

For a minute let me defend the 1960s--the  sex, drugs and rock&roll hedonism of the late 1960s was not about greed, it was about pleasure. Self-indulgent pleasure perhaps. but the pleasure did not involve hurting someone else. Slipping a drug into some else's drink was not considered cool. Sleeping with a friend's girlfriend or boyfriend was taboo. You would be less ashamed if you slept with your brother.

The counter-culture of the late 1960s valued a collective vision. People lived in communes--and some of them worked. (I knew groups of 8 or 9 people who lived in a house for a few years, sharing cooking, housework, etc. The houses were always fairly dirty, and if you were invited for dinner the food wasn't great. But the atmosphere was festive-)

The collective vision extended to a world-view that said that the life of a Vietnamese person was as valuable as the life of an American. Ideally, we would live in a world "without borders." This is very different from current ideas aout globalization--much more like "Doctors Without Borders."

It was in the later 1970s and 1980s that the "greed is good" and "I've got to do what is best for me" memes became popular. This, by the way, is also when CEO salaries began sky-rocket--and when CEOs began to be seen as "celebs." The worship of money had begun.

AS for porn, it seems to me that porn goes hand with repressed sexuality. Certinaly, in the 1980s adn 1990s the very real threat of AIDS put a damper on the free love of the 1960s (with good reason) ,but it also seemed to me that as young people became more conservative, they became more puritanical about sex. Young women started talking about marriage at an earlier age. There was more of a sense that a sexual relationship was a transaction: I give you this and you give me that. It was almost as if people were going back to the Annette Funicello days of "Not until I have a ring on this finger."

Did porn become more popular and darker? I don't know, but I do know that the rise of the Internet has generated more and more porn, and the image of someone alone in a dark room, looking at porn on  his/her lap-top does seem to epitomize that lack of a collective spirit in a fearful and narcissistic age.  Why would someone want to look at porn--why not just sleep with someone? (I don't mean randomly, but why not just find a sexual partner?)

I''m not at all religious, but I do agree with Tom that some porn (not all) represents a corruption of the spirit that seems in keeping with the growing self-absorption, greed and self-hatred of the last 25 years. (I believe that self-absoroption and self-hatred are the flip side of the same coin.)

I would guess that we all agree that kiddie porn is simply wrong--and should be outlawed. It may or may not encourage child molesters. But people who get off on it are very, very sick. And there are other kinds of porn that involve brutality that's way beyond titillating S&M. Usually, it seems rooted in a horrifying misogyny. I think of the Lacrosse player at Duke who wrote that he wanted to skin that girl alive . . .

As for Christian politics, here too, things aren't black and white. Think of Jimmy Carter and Rosalind, reading from teh bible to each other every night. He is certaintly someone who understands "the commond good."

So I think there's a lot to think about in Tom's essay. Clearly, he touched a nerve.

I realize you were responding to the broad range of responses and not just me, but the reason I responded strongly to the point about pornography was, first, that it was as jarring as if you'd said that the examples of our cultural problems are war, greed, and reckless driving, and second, because you presented it as "of course everyone agrees on this, but as liberals opposed to censorship, we can't do anything about it," which I believe is false, and third, because you claimed scientific support for your views that I believe is unwarranted.

Furthermore, the reason our "debate about values" always focuses on sex is not because people immediately ignore more important topics and jump to sex, it's because conservatives created the "debate about values" and have worked for decades to define "values" as only being related to sex. Giving a topic related to sex unwarranted prominence is not a way to reverse that.

My values tell me that poverty, unfairness, war, and greed are self-evidently bad things, and I have no problem having that conversation. And if you want to have a conversation rather than a chorus, you should consider that others of us speak not because we "resent questioning of our personal choices," but simply because we disagree with you.

I agree with you that having politicians speak from conviction is a good thing (even if I disagree with some of their convictions), but I reject the idea that ordinary people avoid conversations about our values. That problem lies with our politicians, not with ourselves.

"sexual excess" as a phrase means absolutely nothing to me.

frankly, i see prudish, repressive attitudes toward human sexuality (and so-called 'pornography' is in fact a very healthy component of human sexuality) as a very serious threat to both my personal well-being and the health, safety, and 'general welfare' of humanity in general.

the "common good" is not threatened by 'pornography', the "common good" is threatened by those who are threatened by 'pornography'.

What is sacred, by a general definition, is that which the establishment clause anticipates that the government must not sully. The establishment clause is itself a law of sacredness, or "setting apart."

Circular definition; semantically null. Again, I am hearing a circular definition of the sacred, mostly coming across as "if you were Judaeo-Christian, you wouldn't need clarification."

Your null call is null. You hear a circular definition, but I have provided you with the constitutional law reality of protection of the sacred via recognition of positive religious rights with negative reliefs found in case law rules made in settling controversies.

The government defines what does not deserve free exercise protection when conduct steps into the jurisdiction of government's public health, safety and welfare responsibilities. Religious free exercise that doesn't do this, a governing official is free to encourage in general among the people as a good social fabric regenerator and protector. I wrote that the constitution grants positive rights with the greatest possible latitude simply by holding that government laws and functions cannot be ruled by any religious group(s) over the others.

I offered you some less exclusionary words, from philosophers that seem not offensive to a Judaeo-Christian ethos, and you have so far ignored them, continuing to chant "sacred" as if that has meaning to me.

I retain the word sacred to stand by a sound position against revising the language to suit political and not constitutional requirements set by random individuals or by yourself. Your asking for definitions is a respectable right and I've answered honestly that governing definitions of religion will not pass establishment which are specific and positive, i.e. what religion is. Such a definition will favor some more than others. So the government focuses on conduct. And a definition that is intentionally generalized is more broadly free in what it does not restrict. The police powers are the negative borders, and that enters government jurisdiction.

In some ways you seem to seek certitude in defining "sacred" and I'd ask why. Your answer seems to be to keep Judeo-Christians in line and out of the church-state business. Well, the very act of defining religion for government purposes is a violation of establishment and conversely free exercise where it impinges on same.

So an intentionally open definition by which the government has used its own inner-jurisdictional sphere as the border (it knows what IT is, and what it's job is, not what religion is or isn't). And this is done to respect the expanse of the religious and sacred.

So bleaching our culture of the sacred would begin with silencing leaders in all sectors who would do what the constitution has done: recognized and verbally, even loudly encouraging folks to seek the sacred in their respective faiths and use the power of their spiritual lives to do the good that government cannot.

Sacred, so far, seems to apply to "people of faith". I've never heard an animist, a Buddhist, a neopagan, or an Ethical Culturist use those terms. Such people generally associate "faith" with some, not all, Judaeo-Christian descriptions of a personal deity.

I've heard Buddhists, neopagans and animists refer to what is sacred to them. I use faith as inclusive of "people who believe what they believe" about spirituality or religion or central meaning.

Do you not see how that description makes people who are not Judaeo-Christian nervous, even before getting into atheists and agnostics?

I see those who are not the majority religious identity in any country as reasonably more nervous about the majority than others, yet I'm not sure the shoe fits here. Wicca is not the majority, that is for sure. However, it is one of the many religions enjoying the same protections as the others. As such, I think this is testimony to the civil libertarian vision harmonized by Judeo-Christian dissenters from unconstitutional politics against race. There is tolerance by the majority, yet begin asking it to give up its words for minorities, and that's too much to ask.

It is unclear how you see the role of divine punishment for negative reinforcement. Most Wiccan revivalists do not think of divine punishment, but do put much emphasis on a tradition that an action reflects threefold on the actor. In other words, take a bad action and have it reflect back on you.

I can see the deterrence value in that, even if it is simply a principle on which a witch would rely yet read no moral into.

The Eastern Christian view tends toward seeing Divine punishment as equivalent to God granting the will of the individual who does not want God involved with him or her, i.e. what that individual wants. It is the weight of receiving what that person wants in terms of what was lost while living on after death that many call punishment.

Yet punishment, strangely enough, connotes a possibility of fulfillment of a term, or a reformatory existence that could cause the soul to change course, or will. It's not guaranteed. God deals with every soul differently in our tradition. Remember how some were told to sell all possessions and some were not? It depended on where their hearts were when considering the call of Christ.

Eternal punishment seems to refer to those who reject the God of Love, the eternal God that Is Love. One who rejects eternal love gets eternity with love all around him or her while yet rejecting it from one's inner being. This is sadly possible in that God Is Love and cannot be other than what God Is, and will enter a heart only by sincere invitation. Improving morally is part of preparing the heart as a living invitation to God's indwelling.

If I hear you correctly, one cannot be ethical without "faith", so even religious that don't especially use that concept apparently cannot be truly ethical people.

To hear me correctly on this, you would have to have more stamina than I expect you to have and read all of my comments and posts, the balance of which discuss the Christian faith's respect for those not in the Christian faith living by their own standards which may be a law unto themselves, or who may not live up to their own standards. IOWs it is by their own standards that they would be judged by God.

And note...Christ in the gospels tells the twelve apostles that they will be kings in heaven who judge the 12 tribes of Israel. It doesn't say they will judge the gentiles. There are even checks and balances in the kingdom of heaven it seems, and room for those who are of Jewish or Greek descent. Imagine that. And Christ said, there is neither Jew nor Greek nor Scythian nor slave in Christ...

Religions and their role in individual dignity, morals, well being and civil rights are worthy of encouragement.

All religions? Churches of Set and of Satan? (I do know a Satanist priestess named Rosemary, and I assure you that I am unnerved by Rosemary's Baby's Baby). Himmler's twist on Norse? Skoptsies? Cult of Cybele? Qutbism? Thuggee?

Religions and their roles in individual dignity, morals, well being and civil rights...

Those that worship god(s) of selfishness seldom if ever sincerely support the above qualities of the polities in which they operate.

When bad actors get into these groups and do bad things, I wish to high heaven that the dishonest blamers of the religious / spiritual / and sacred would heed reason and stop persevering in false accusations.

False accusation? A Qutbist does not want to convert or destroy, based on an interpretation of an Abrahamic religion -- admittedly a heresy to many?

Can't say I catch the application of your example to my point.