No Moral Truce
“Anybody who would suggest we call a truce on moral issues doesn’t understand what America’s all about,” Rick Santorum said at the first GOP Presidential Debate.
Of course, what he means by this is not clear. It doesn’t seem to be a universal interest in morality. When it comes to the question of torture, Santorum is interested in telling people that it works; the moral question seems to be entirely outside of his mind. Indeed, the things he praised President Obama for are some of the most questionable Bush policies possible:
He’s done right by keeping Gitmo open,” Santorum said, referring to Guantánamo Bay prison camp. “He’s done right by finishing the job in Iraq. He has done right by trying to win in Afghanistan. Those were existing policies that were in place.
This, however, is how it usually is. The moral question, for some, seems to end when one is outside of the bedroom and the baby is born. Until someone shows a universal concern for life, for human dignity at all stages of life, I will dismiss their call for morality as empty rhetoric. After all, they show that when the going gets tough, morality is one of the first things they toss aside.
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You made excellent points here. However BECAUSE what you wrote is true, I do not think you will get many comments.
Santorum would scare me if there was a snowball’s chance in hell that he’d get elected.
Even if he does not have a chance of winning the presidency, he has a major chance of encouraging the kind of political discourse (and moral neglect) that many in his party will show.
In being critical of him, I will give him props for his attempt to help save Terri Schiavo, even if he knew (or thought) it could hurt him politically.
He gives an additional voice to immorality, but I’m not sure it’s that big of a voice.
Infliction-of-pain carried out by the State is only necessarily “torture” if capital punishment is necessarily “murder.”
I would suggest you read Solovyov’s Justification of the Good….
Infliction of pain/discomfort becomes torture when it ceases to motivate the will and instead coerces and undermines it. The techniques Santorum supports cross this line.
The lesser-included idea is a notion of secular morality, not Catholic morality. Under that theory, if I can execute someone, I could also rape her. We could have a contest for more examples of the ludicrousness of this idea, but it’s not necessary. From a Catholic perspective, it’s a depraved idea.
According to Burke’s way of interpreting these things, Santorum should now be denied the Eucharist.
I didn’t watch the debate, but I’m sure that Santorum was making reference to Mitch Daniels. He gave a speech at CPAC that depicted the budget battle as the central domestic issue of our time, and he’s called for a “truce” on social issues.
The point I am making is — if he wants to go all out on the moral card, and say there should be no true, that kind of battle is not going to go well with him.