What Liberals Believe by William Martin

Author:William Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Moral Values

Not only do water-boarding and the other types of torture … put us in company with the most vile regimes of the past half century; they’re also designed specifically to generate a (usually false) confession, not to obtain genuinely actionable intel. This isn’t a matter of sacrificing moral values to keep us safe; it’s sacrificing moral values for no purpose whatsoever.

—Jonah Blank, quoted in “Good People—Bad Government?” Common Dreams (October 16, 2006)

Why is a nation consumed with moral values so blind to state-sanctioned immorality?

—Marie Cocco, “Moral Values Apply to Torture, Too,” Newsday (December 16, 2004)

There’s not the slightest evidence that religious people in a given society are any more moral than non-religious people.

—Richard Dawkins, “Atheist Richard Dawkins on ‘The God Delusion,’” interviewed by Terrence McNally, AlterNet (January 18, 2007)

The moral values debate is precisely the one Democrats need to be having right now. Because if they don’t capture the moral high ground back from the Republicans, they’ll never be able to capture the hearts and votes of Red America.

—Arianna Huffington, “Real Moral Values,” AlterNet (November 10, 2004)

Nothing less is at stake in the torture crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it profit us if we proclaim high moral values but fail to reject torture?

—George Hunsinger, “American Scar,” Baltimore Sun (January 31, 2005)

Advocates of religiosity extol the virtues or moral habits that religion is supposed to instill in us. But we should be equally concerned with the intellectual habits it discourages.

—Wendy Kaminer, “The Last Taboo,” New Republic (October 14, 1996)

Morals cannot be legislated.

—Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom (1958)

[Americans] want their lives to have meaning—and they respond to candidates who seem to care about values and some sense of transcendent purpose.

—Rabbi Michael Lerner, “The Democrats Need a Spiritual Left,” Common Dreams (November 4, 2004)

I believe in moral coherence…. You cannot assert your own humanity, then turn right around and deny someone else’s.

—Leonard Pitts, Jr., “Coming Out of the Closet to Declare My Humanity,” Seattle Times (December 17, 2006)

Essential to conservative moral systems is the existence of rules…. Any challenge to the rules leads inevitably to chaos and immorality. It is always a slippery slope. Rules represent the natural order, the way things are. This emphasis on rules leads to either/or thinking…. Those who break the rules must be punished.

—Bernard Brandon Scott, quoted in “Strict Father, Metaphors, and Fundamentalism,” Timeline (November/December 2004)

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