Morality?

There’s something a bit disorienting about learning that morality was the single most important issue among people who voted for Bush. I have two words for these people.

Karl Rove.

Rove is responsible for some of the most despicable lies and distortions seen in politics in the last 20 years, and, knowing this, George Bush has hired him.

Bush himself has conducted a campaign full of distortions, deceptions and character assassination, either personally or by proxy.

How is it moral to corrupt the political process? In my mind, it’s the height of immorality because it’s destructive of the most valuable aspects of the American way of life, democracy.

How is it moral to attack a country and cause tens of thousands of deaths unnecessarily?

I’m not without sympathy with those who see abortion has a terrible thing that must be addressed. I frankly don’t see Bush and his court-packing power as the solution. I think the problem of the abortion problem is one of justice and love, and Bush will not promote the first, and cannot be expected — nor can any government — to promote the second. I do think that Karl Rove is responsible for a climate and fear and hatred, however.

I deeply believe, though that Bush and Rove and the rest of Bush’s minions are motivated by greed and power, and whose will create a return to a Guilded Age, in which government is corrupted by the extremely wealthy, where poverty — and abortion — will become more common. We’re already seen the acceleration of the widening gap between the very rich and the rest of Americans in this administration.

I’ll address the question of economic justice later, but let me finish by saying that it is not my intent or desire to suggest the persons who voted for Kerry are necessarily more moral on a personal level than those who voted for Bush. And I think it’s important to distinguish between personal morals and the moral implications of public policy. I think that moral people may well disagree about public policy.

However, I do feel that many people who voted for Bush because of “moral issues” have been sold a false bill of goods by Karl Rove and his ilk.