Sunday, October 28, 2012

The Moral Case for Voting for Obama

The Christianists and professional Christian set by vast majorities support the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan ticket.  These people who proudly proclaim such support typically also wrap themselves in misplaced religious piety.  More often than not, they seem most motivated by hate and bigotry against others forgetting that NONE of us had the luxury of deciding whether we were born black, white or of some other ethnic background; whether we we born male or female; whether we were born gay or straight; whether we were born into a family of wealth and privilege like Messrs. Romney and Ryan; or whether we born into a family that was Christian. Muslim or something else.  Not a one of us had any control over the hand we were dealt in these regards.   Yet these proud Republicans - most of whom are white, conservative Christians and straight - have a sense of extreme superiority and self-righteousness over others not born into the same circumstances that they themselves enjoyed.  Worse yet, they hold hate and contempt for those not born white, Christian and straight.  But the case in support of labeling them morally bankrupt is even worse.  Andrew Sullivan makes the case why one is truly moral - and I make the case that the Christianists/tea Party base of the GOP is inherently immoral - voting for Barack Obama is the only moral choice.  Here are excerpts:

[T]there is another dimension to politics and it's about morality. Some issues are not subject to prudential or utilitarian reasoning, but are fundamental a priori moral questions. Let me cite three areas where I think the difference between Obama and Romney is a deep and moral one and requires the exercize of conscience as well as judgment.

The first is universal access to healthcare. I've long been a fan of the great parts of America's private healthcare system: its treatment of patients as customers they want to keep, as opposed to human beings they are simply mandated to treat; the innovation of the pharmaceutical companies in a free market; private hospitals and doctors. But the fact that tens of millions of human beings cannot afford access to this often excellent private healthcare, even in a basic form, remains, to my mind, a scandal. That there are two nations in this country - one with the security of healthcare and one with no security at all - remains, to my mind, a moral disgrace.

This election is really asking you: do you believe everyone should be able to have access to private health insurance or not?  .  .  .  . To run a campaign in favor of removing that kind of security for tens of millions of Americans and replacing it with nothing remotely comparable is simply, deeply, morally wrong

Torture is also a non-negotiable issue for me. It is simply unacceptable. It is the negation of the West's entire founding principles. Any candidate of any party who supports it rules himself out for me on that ground alone. Romney will bring it back. He will make America a torturing nation again. He would employ the former war criminals of the dark years of Bush-Cheney and legitimize them still further.

Finally, I cannot reconcile a pre-emptive war against a country that only has the technical ability to make a nuclear bomb, but has not weaponized it or threatened its use, with any reading of just war theory. 

I have no illusions about the evil in the Tehran regime.  .  .  .  .  But when the Supreme Leader of that theocracy publicly declares as religious doctrine that using a nuclear bomb is a sin, and when the opposition in Iran favors the nuclear program as a matter of national pride, and when Iran's nuclear capability would still be no match for Israel's massive and fully actionable nuclear apparatus, then pre-emptive war is morally unconscionable. To use an expression like "mowing the lawn" to decribe such acts of war that would kill countless people makes me sick to my stomach. 

Romney favors such a pre-emptive war based merely on Iran's capability. Obama favors it based on the actual decision to construct a nuclear weapon. Both, I believe, are morally troublesme, from a just war perspective. But Romney's is far worse. I'm no pacifist. But I also deeply oppose war except in self-defense with as few civilian casualties as is possible. 

Andrew also correctly looks at the support for equal civil liberties and employment protections for LGBT Americans which in my mind is also a moral issue, but it is health care, torture and unnecessary war that he finds determinative:
I'm not citing civil rights issues, but they of course factor in. The GOP's institutional bigotry toward gay people and our lives and families and its stated intent to keep a whole class of us disenfranchized from the basic right to marry the person you love appalls me.

On the universality of access to healthcare, on torture, and on pre-emptive war, my conscience therefore requires me to withhold support for the Republican candidate. I disagree with him on many prudential policy grounds - but none reach the level of moral seriousness of the above.

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